You're exactly right about this. A lot of people from NY move to a place like Florida and claim it as their primary residence, but they keep a home in NY and spend most of their time in NY anyway. These people are morons.
And since NY is getting an average of more than $140,000 in unpaid taxes from these audits, they're obviously very rich morons.
How’s things?
I don’t sympathize with the targets of the audits if the state of NY can find $1 of revenue; do your research, and when they come up empty they’ll leave you alone.
The problem for the state is that eventually they run out of targets; it isn’t like young people today are “making a go of it” in NY and can be pursued in twenty years when they pack up and leave. They’re leaving just to get a start somewhere else...