Connecticut Supreme Court Clarifies Standards Governing Estate Tax Domicile Disputes

In an important decision for part-time Connecticut residents, the Connecticut Supreme Court recently clarified the standards governing estate tax domicile disputes. While the new standards are more taxpayer-friendly, this decision confirms that the ultimate question of estate tax domicile remains inherently subjective and fact-specific and requires careful planning by those who may have taxable estates.

The case involved a Connecticut Department of Revenue Services audit of the estate of the late Jack Anderson, a wealthy entrepreneur who maintained residences in Florida, Connecticut, and Arizona. Applying and weighting a 28-factor domicile test, DRS determined that Anderson was a Connecticut resident for estate tax purposes and that his estate owed over $13 million in tax.  

The executor of Anderson’s estate appealed to the Connecticut Superior Court. Despite Anderson’s “administrative” connections to Florida -- including a Florida domicile declaration, Florida driver’s license, Florida voter registration, and Florida bank accounts -- the Superior Court found that his substantive personal, social, and property connections to Connecticut and Florida were roughly equal. The tiebreaker was Anderson’s time spent in each jurisdiction: five-and-a-half months a year in Connecticut, versus three-and-a-half in Florida. That was enough to establish a Connecticut domicile where other factors did not point in either direction. The Superior Court thus upheld DRS’s tax assessment.

Anderson’s executor appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court. Though the Court reversed, it did so for a reason neither party had initially raised: the evidentiary standard applied by the Superior Court. Throughout the case, both Anderson’s executor and DRS had assumed that Anderson needed to overcome DRS’s domicile determination by clear and convincing evidence, a higher bar than the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard that applies in most civil cases. Though typically reserved for cases involving fraud or other quasi-criminal wrongdoing, the clear-and-convincing standard had been applied in some tax matters. But the Court declined to do so here. Its conclusion rested largely on the nature of tax domicile determinations. Rather than technocratic rulings based on objective data on which courts might justifiably defer to DRS, domicile turns on a decedent’s subjective intent and the unique facts and circumstances of his or her life. That type of determination, the Court found, can and should be made under the ordinary civil preponderance standard.

The Court also clarified the procedures governing appeals to the Superior Court from DRS estate tax domicile determinations. Because these appeals are “de novo,” the Court found that DRS’s ruling -- including its weighting of the 28 domicile factors -- is entitled to no deference on appeal, and that the court must only consider the evidence before it (not the evidence before DRS).

These twin holdings should help level the playing field in estate tax domicile disputes. But as the Court emphasized, decedents are presumed by statute to be Connecticut residents, and the ultimate burden of overcoming that presumption remains on a decedent’s estate. The Court also reiterated that domicile determinations remain highly fact-specific and subjective -- so no single factor can serve as a silver bullet against the Connecticut estate tax.

Part-time Connecticut residents concerned about Connecticut estate tax exposure should thus continue to work closely with their legal and accounting teams on domicile issues.

For more information, review the full case: Daniels v. Comm’r of Revenue Servs., 354 Conn. 768 (2026).

If you have any questions regarding this alert, please contact your Cummings & Lockwood attorney.