OK - it depends: You can, broadly, divide states into 3 groups. The first is easy - no income tax (e.g. Washington, Texas and Florida). Secondly, the States that define a resident as someone who is domiciled there but have a SPECIAL rule for those who live overseas. The States which fall into this category include New York and California, both of which say that you become non-resident from the day you left, providing you stay away for about a year and a half (in these cases if the assignment does not work out so you end up back home sooner than planned, then hard luck).
The third kind are those States that tax folks as residents based on domicile. These include Massachusetts, Georgia and Virginia. In these States it is often almost impossible to break residence just by working overseas.
Finally, even if non-resident but you perform duties in a State (e.g. have a few workdays there) you may find you owe that State some tax. This typically hurts most in California and New York. Failing to pay if you owe a few dollars in State taxes technically counts as tax evasion, so it needs thinking about; but in some circumstances the State tax may be claimed as a credit in the UK so may not actually cost anything apart from some paperwork.
