Hi,

I am in US since past 8 years on H1B. My wife and I got married 5 years ago and she joined me in US as a dependent. Since then, I have always filled as resident Married filling jointly. In 2012 she converted her H-4 to F-1. She however did not get employed as TA, GTA etc so had no salary. Therefore for 2012, I again filled married filling jointly as resident.

In Aug 2013, she got employment as TA. I received her W-2 from the university and they did not deduct FICA from her paycheck.

Shall I again file married filling jointly as residents? Should we inform university to deduct FICA (I guess its too late for that for 2013 filling)?

Or should we file separately this year?

She is STILL exempt from FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes even though she filed jointly with you in 2012.

So file jointly AGAIN in 2013.

Thanks ATE. I use Taxact to file taxes online. Is there any option that we need to select in the software so that the software knows that she is FICA exempt? Because when I entered her W-2 online, the software showed me that I owed more in federal and state taxes on top of what I already owe.Thank you.

The FICA taxes has NO EFFECT on the federal tax return. I use TaxAct and simply ZERO out the FICA taxes on the W-2 masque.