Who Am I? Where Am I?

Ah, spring: when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of income tax and the decennial census.

I use a popular computer program to complete my taxes. Usually, it works very well. However, it isn't quite suitable for someone who moved, only kinda sorta, during the year. My mailing address changed to TN, but I still have a mortgage in NM. My paycheck is in TN, and it's not a "temporary" change because it's not an assignment that will end after a specified time, but I'm still a NM resident because I'm registered to vote in NM, and my car is registered there. Hence, I still have to pay state income tax there. (It is a blessing, though, that TN doesn't have state income tax.)

The census form doesn't care about any of that, though. They just want to know where I am at this moment. That's kind of weird because TN legislators will think they represent me, and my sales taxes will go to TN's budget, but I'm a NM voter. The census cares even less that I might leave TN some time in the next ten years. (That's what happened in AL ten years ago; I filled out the census form then moved back to NM six months later.)

At least they sent me the "short form" this year. Twenty years ago (can it actually be that long since I was a college freshman?), my R.A. handed out census forms to all the guys on our floor of the dorm. As it happens, the only two people who received the "long form" were the two students whose families happened to be in the process of moving between states (and trying to convince the university that we actually were state residents so we wouldn't have to pay out-of-state tuition). Our R.A. helped settle our confusion by telling us to consider our home as where the breadwinner lived. (Ah, for the good old days when only one parent's salary was sufficient to raise a family.)