Hi,

I am in international student from Germany and have been studying in the US for 2 years. I have hired a tax company last year and this year to do my taxes. This year, I had some additional questions and it turned out that my tax company had filed resident alien tax returns for me, although I said I am on a F-1 student visa and non-resident. In my university, they hammer us with not filing resident taxes under no circumstances, because we are not resident aliens. Now I am really afraid that the taxes have been filed wrong and owe the return that I got last year or worse, someone will accuse me of fraud. The assistant from the company said, they've been doing this for years and for many other international students and they wouldn't file me as a resident alien for tax purposes if it were against the laws.

I am pretty upset, because I don't know what's going to happen down the road now. And also how I am supposed to file my taxes this year.

Can anyone please give me a perspective on this? I don't understand what I am getting myself into and whether I should question what the tax company is doig there?

You will need to amend your tax return for last year.
Fill out a 1040X and a complete non-resident alien tax return.
You can download the forms from the IRS website.
The form you would need to file is a 1040NR or 1040NR-EZ and in addition an 8843.
The same for 2010.

Don't use that company again, they obviously have no idea about taxes for foreigners.
And don't worry, as long as you file the amended return you should be fine. The IRS does not check your visa status with immigrations.

There is software to help with the federal non-resident alien return. One is CINTAX and another one Windstar. Some universities provide free access. You could ask in your international office.

Schreib zurueck, falls Du noch Fragen hast. Ich persoenlich habe mir das Geld fuer den Steuerberater gespart seit ich vor ein paar Jahren in die USA gekommen bin. Es ist nicht so schwierig wie es scheinen mag;-)

Hi and thanks for the answer. When do I file the amend and will I have to pay penalty or something? The thing is, that I received a return last year and I don't have this money anymore.

You should file as soon as possible. If you owe money, you will have to pay interest and/or penalty. This increases the more time you wait. If you get an additional refund, there is no penalty.