PORTLAND – Legislation that would help part-time residents of Maine determine whether they are subject to the state’s income tax is drawing support from tax lawyers and accountants.

But the Maine Revenue Service says it has come out with a new pamphlet to help people better understand their residency status and warns that the pending bill would cost the state money as more people seek to avoid paying Maine taxes.

House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said he filed the bill in response to complaints from constituents who expressed concern about ambiguity in the law.

The bill would require the state tax assessor to come up with rules to clarify and define domicile so that taxpayers who live in more than one state or country and spend fewer than 184 days a year in Maine can figure out whether they will be considered Maine residents for tax purposes.

That would be a welcome change for Steven Albrecht, who moved from Rangeley to Concord, N.H., in 2001 and did what the Maine Revenue Service instructed to establish residency in New Hampshire and stop paying Maine income taxes. He registered to vote in Concord, obtained a New Hampshire driver’s license and registered his car there. But since his wife and youngest child continue to live in Maine, the revenue service refuses to accept that he lives in New Hampshire, he says.

Albrecht says he needs to live in New Hampshire to run his investment management company. His wife, Ellen, needs to be in Maine to continue to operate her architectural business in Rangeley, and to be near their daughter, a sophomore at Carrabassett Valley Academy.

In trying to establish his New Hampshire residency, Albrecht closed both of his Maine businesses and made sure the Rangeley house was owned completely by his wife, he says. He spends one weekend day in Maine with his wife and lives six days a week in his New Hampshire apartment.

“The only thing we have left is divorce,” Albrecht said.

Albrecht has filed suit in Franklin County against the Maine Revenue Service, seeking recognition as a non-resident and immunity from Maine’s income tax. Citing confidentiality laws, tax officials declined to comment on the case.

Michael Niles, president-elect of the 1,000-member Maine Society of Certified Public Accountants, says many people are confused about whether they are Maine taxpayers and too often pay a heavy price when it turns out they were wrong.

Because domicile is not defined in the present tax code, he says, the Maine Revenue Service uses the vagueness to its advantage, going after people who then have to prove they do not have residency.

“They are paying thousands of dollars to try to get out of this tax nightmare,” said Niles, whose group is backing Cummings’ bill.

Jonathan Block, a lawyer at Pierce Atwood in Portland, who helped write the proposed legislation, says there are probably thousands of cases involving snow birds, expatriates and other former Maine residents who thought they had moved away.

Jerome Gerard, who heads the revenue service, says Maine tax law is clear and few taxpayers contact the service with domicile questions. “It is defined through common law that has been kicked around for hundreds of years,” he said.

Gerard says if domicile were defined in the tax code, it would eliminate the gray areas. More people would be able to claim they are domiciled elsewhere and avoid paying Maine taxes and the state would lose money. “It would be very expensive,” he said.