Question

Resident alien for tax purposes? filling for 5th year on F1

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
June 1, 2019
1 reply
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entered the US as an F1 student on Aug 2014, graduated in may 2018. now I'm working on OPT. When I try to use glacier to file my 2018 taxes, it tells me I'm a resident for tax purposes for 2018. Wouldn't 2018 be included in the 5 years as an exempt individual? I get that for my 2019 taxes i'm a resident but what about 2018/?

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pk12_2

Employee

If you were admitted in 2014, your five calendar years of exempt status would have ended at the end of 2018, as long as you have met the conditions of visa. You should have been filing 1040-NR ( if there was any US sourced income). In 2019 you would be dual status --- Non Resident Alien till you meet the 183 days substantial presence test and thereafter residnt for tax purposes ( unless you requested to be treated as a resident for the whole year , known as first year choice ).

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pramodp953

Hello There,
I have arrived to US on Aug 2015, working on OPT, this is the first tax filing that I was going through. Am I eligible to file as Resident for the Tax year 2019.

Please reply me.
Regards,

P

pk12_2

Employee

@pramodp953 , since you were admitted to the USA in Aug 2015 ( under F-1 ?? ), you would be in exempt status ( i.e. from counting days present towards substantial presence test ) till the end of 2019. Assuming that there has not been any adjustment to your visa , for 2019 you would file as a Non-Resident Alien i.e. using form 1040-NR or 1040-NR-EZ. Note these two forms are not supported by TurboTax ---their partner in this is SprinTax. You can also inquire at your school's foreign student office -- they will guide you to a source for filling out this form. Did you get a W-2 from your OPT employer or a 1042-S ? It is not too difficult to fill up the form 1040-NR-EZ -- one can download the fillable .pdf from www.irs.gov, fill out and mail it in .

Is there something else I can help you with ?

Namaste