Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a citizen of India and was on F-1 from Aug 2001 to Jan2007, and on OPT working as a researcher in KS from Jan2007 to Jan2008. I filed my taxes (Form-1040) through the legal services and would appreciate your expert opinion on some of my questions and concerns.

1) Does the time during the F-1 and OPT count towards substantial presence test? In other words deducting social security as well as medicare reasonable in my case

2) Will it help I try to file form 843 in getting any kind of refund. Is it even worth trying?

3) Last year I donated my car and got a tax a tax deductible of 500$. Addiitionally, my business expense in term of visiting conferences and membership was approx. 1200$. Also, I bought a computer for 700$ for work purposes. Ans none of this was listed on my tax preparations. Is there any way I would have been used them to my advantage.

My total wages were 33,000 while my SST was 1983.90 and Medicare was 463.98. Besides these I ended up paying a federal tax of 3190$. Thus to conclude I ended up paying a total of 5637.80$ in tax for a total salary of 33,000, besides state taxes. Does that sound reasonable. If there is any way to get any of it back please let me know. I am sorry for all the questions and inconvenience and would appreciate your help and guidance. I am grateful to you for all your help and support, as always.

Kind Regards,
A. Bhambhani

The five-year exemption that goes with the F-1 visa expired for you on 31 December 2005. For both 2006 and 2007, you were a resident alien for tax purposes.

1) You cannot deduct either Social Security or Medicare taxes.

2) You are liable for Social Security and Medicare; filing Form 843 would be a waste of time.

3) The reason these deductions are not shown is that they are itemized deductions. It is likely that the grand total of all of your itemized deductions did NOT exceed the $5,350 standard deduction to which you are entitled.

Your effective tax rate is just abit over 17%, which is about the norm for a single person.