Federal Income Tax Filing – Nonresidents for Tax Purposes
Residency Status for Federal Tax Purposes
US federal tax laws distinguish between residents (who are taxed in the same way as US citizens and permanent residents) and nonresidents for tax purposes. Surprisingly, your residency status for tax purposes may not match your residency status for visa purposes!
We have partnered with Sprintax Returns to make the tax-filing process easier for you. Sprintax will guide you through every step of your tax filing. The first step in Sprintax returns will ask for the history of your stays in the US to determine if you are a resident or a nonresident for federal tax purposes. If it determines that you are a nonresident for tax purposes, you can proceed with filing your federal tax return using Sprintax.
We recommend nonresidents for tax purposes use the Sprintax software provided by our office to complete their tax returns each year, as Sprintax is tax service specifically catered to tax nonresidents. Many other tax services in the US are not designed for nonresident tax filing, and filing incorrectly as a resident can have serious ramifications on your tax compliance and lead to complications in the future.
If you are found to be a resident for tax purposes, the software will stop you from proceeding. Please see our page on federal tax filing for residents for details on how to file your federal tax return as a resident for tax purposes.
Federal Tax Filing for Nonresidents
If you earned no US-sourced income, and did not have a taxable scholarship or financial aid, please click here for details about how to file your tax return.
Otherwise, before starting your tax return, please be sure to review the list of the documents you may need to have in hand in order to complete the process.
Tufts Support Services (TSS) issues tax forms to students and scholars who are paid for work or receive taxable scholarships and fellowships. These include W-2s forms to report taxable wages and 1042-S forms to report taxable scholarships and fellowships or tax treaty benefits. TSS will be sending out detailed information on how to access these forms by February 15.
Once you are ready to file your tax return, click here to access Sprintax Returns and fill out the questionnaires to prepare your tax return.
Additional Tax Filing Support for Nonresidents
It can be intimidating to file a tax return, especially for the first time. Before starting, we highly recommend taking advantage of these resources available to help you make sense of all the forms and the filing process.
- We highly recommend to attend a tax-filing webinar hosted by Sprintax before diving in to filing your tax return. These webinars are designed specifically for international students and scholars to help you understand topics such as tax residency, FICA, state returns, implications of misfiling, and how to use Sprintax.
- Watch our brief Top Tax Tips video for a quick overview of the most important terms and concepts you need to know to file a US tax return.
- If you have any questions, we recommend to review our detailed Tax FAQs page, which covers the most common issues that students and scholars encounter during the filing process.
- You are also welcome to access Sprintax’s YouTube videos for quick snippets covering various tax topics.
- For specific problems or questions involving personal circumstances, the Sprintax team will be happy to help via their 24/7 Live Chat in the software.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided on this page is general guidance for the benefit of Tufts international students, scholars, and employees. The International Center is not authorized to provide specific tax guidance on individual tax situations.