Dear AtlantaTaxExpert,


Here is some background information:

I am an international student with F1 visa. I came here in August 2008, and I have not ever been working or receiving any scholarship in US.

At first I was living with my cousin; and he said I have nothing to deal about taxation in US since I was an unemployed full-time student. So I have neglected this issue until I received an email from my current university few days ago. The email says I need to submit Form 8843 even I did not receive any income from US in 2011.



The followings are my questions:

1) Since I did not submitted any Form 8843 for the year of 2008 - 2010, will I be in troubled, like penalized or put in jail?

2) For sure, I will file Form 8843 for this year; however, should I file the past missed ones too?

3) If I submit all the forms back, will I put myself into trouble


4) As I am planning to apply my first internship in US during the coming summer time, will the missed filing issue give me a hard time or troubles in finding internships?


Apologize for asking so many questions. But I do appreciate with your sincere help, because I am so single-handed now.


Best regards,
Zoe.

You are required to file form 8843 if you are on student visa because that way you can exclude your days of presence in the US and be counted as Non Resident. Please file it immediately.

From from 8843 instructions:

"Penalty for Not Filing Form 8843 If you do not file Form 8843 on time, you may not exclude the days you were present in the United States as a professional athlete or because of a medical condition or medical problem that arose while you were in the United States. Failure to exclude days of presence in the United States could result in your being considered a U.S. resident under the substantial presence
test.You will not be penalized if you can show by clear and convincing evidence that you took reasonable actions to become aware of the filing requirements and significant steps to comply with those requirements"

Also see Page 6 and 7 from Pub 519 starting from "Exempt Individual" till just before "Professional Athletes.

File form 8843 for 2011. Also file for previous years. There is no penalty except that you may not get treaty deduction if you do not file these forms.