Question

I'm on H1b, spouse on F1 OPT, married filing jointly

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 5, 2019
3 replies
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I am currently on H1b. Wife was on F1 OPT until Jan 2019 when she got her H1b as well. My wife came to USA in August 2014. Wife's employer did not withhold social security and medicare taxes. When using TurboTax and choosing "Married filing jointly" the tool calculates that we have to pay the social security and medicare taxes after uploading her W-2.

IRS website mentions:

"You and your spouse are treated, for federal income tax purposes, as residents for all tax years that the choice is in effect. However, for Social Security and Medicare tax withholding purposes, the nonresident alien may still be treated as a nonresident alien. Refer to Aliens Employed in the U.S. – Social Security Taxes."

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-alien-spouse

Is there a way in TurboTax to indicate that my wife is a non-resident alien so that the taxes are calculated correctly?

Note that we filed jointly last year but did not use TurboTax, we went to a tax agent.

TurboTax Premier Online

P

psrm812

Hello varevolf, did you get an answer that works? Please post it if you did. Thanks!!

P

pk12_2

Employee

TurboTax being geared to citizens/residents and resident for tax purposes ( and filing form 1040 ) I do not believe it will be able to handle a W-2 with no FICA entered -- it will show this as an error.

How did you file last year --- as resident aliens ( on form 1040 ) or Non-resident aliens on form 1040-NR ?

Assuming that you were both Resident Aliens for 2018, if you enter her W-2 as is and when it talks about Social Security and Medicare due, it should be asking if your spouse was a medical resident -- say yes to that . This will allow the software to be happy without charging you for FICA taxes.

V

varevolfAuthor

Thanks for your response! Yes, we did file as resident aliens last year (form 1040). I am not quite able to find the option you mentioned - "when it talks about Social Security and Medicare due, it should be asking if your spouse was a medical resident -- say yes to that"
I do see a page titled "Do any of these uncommon situations apply to this W-2?" but I can't find any option mentioning "medical resident"

A

Anonymous

Where you able to file using Turbo tax? Your wife shouldn't have paid Social security and Medicare taxes right?