In a community property state, the earnings of a married couple are joint earnings - each person owns one-half of the other person's earnings. Thus, at death, each person is allowed to transfer only his or her half of the total property to the person of his or her choice. While alive and married, one spouse cannot dispose off a community property without the consent of the other spouse.
If you acquire or earn assets in a community property state and then move to a non-community property state, the property acquired in community property state remains as community property.
This simple fact has many estate planning implications for you to keep in mind.
The ten states with community property laws are Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
