Filing Income Tax Returns

Paying taxes correctly while you are a J-1 Visiting Teacher is YOUR responsibility. 

When you give a test to your students at school, you expect that they will carefully read and follow the directions, and that they will do their own work.  Paying your taxes is similar — understanding the directions is very important, and YOUR taxes may be different from the taxes of your friends or peers.

We are NOT TAX PREPARERS and we CANNOT PROVIDE TAX ADVICE.  We can provide information about how J-1 income is supposed to be taxed. We have partnered with Sprintax because we know that the correct forms will be filed while you are a non-resident. Many other services/software that you could use to prepare your taxes may not file the proper forms.  Turbo Tax does NOT file the correct forms (1040-NR) while you are a non-resident (for most, that will be the first two calendar years you live in the U.S.).

Tips for Using Sprintax

  • Teachers should select the option J1 Professor/Teacher. Dependents using Sprintax can select J1 – Exchange Cultural Program Visitor
  • When you select J-1 Professor/Teacher and you reach the College Details screen, enter the details of the school where you are teaching (in the University drop down, select “other”). For the Major, enter Teacher.
  • If you need to save and go back later, your progress should be saved. You will see your saved progress after you sign back in and click on the tax year/form that you were completing.
  • If your federal return e-file is successful, you should get an email letting you know that it was accepted or rejected. You DO NOT need to send in the paper documents for your federal return as long as the e-file was accepted (even though the papers you downloaded say that you do). You will still need to follow the mailing instructions for other items (state tax returns, forms 8843 for any dependents, etc.).
  • You must complete the W-2 form exactly the way that your W-2 form from your school is completed. If you complete the form first and then upload a copy of your W-2, it will erase what you have entered. You don’t HAVE to upload a copy but if you do, upload first and then complete the rest of the form manually. The items that it auto-fills may not be correct, so check it carefully.
  • You can say “no” to the extra items that Sprintax wants to you pay for at the end of the interview (communicating to the IRS on your behalf and the Sprintax forms service). Those services are not required.
  • If you have J-2 dependents in the US who are not filing their own tax return, list them as dependents on your return. It doesn’t help in terms of extra money in a refund, but it does generate a form that they need to submit to the IRS (8843). Follow the instructions to mail those forms separately for each dependent.

Resident vs. Non-Resident

If you have NEVER LIVED OR WORKED in the US before you arrived on your J-1 visa, you are considered a NON-RESIDENT ALIEN for tax purposes for your first two years.  See the chart below to see how J-1 Teacher non-resident aliens are treated for tax purposes.

Any part of a calendar year counts as a full year.  For example, if you arrived in the US on or before 12/31/2022, your first year of tax filing would be the 2022 tax year and your second year would be the 2023 tax year.  When you file your 2024 taxes, you would be considered a resident alien.  The tax treatment of resident aliens is different, and you can see that on the chart below!

FAQs 

How much should I be paying in taxes?  While you are in the US/Indiana on a J-1 visa, you will pay about 15% of your teacher salary in income taxes (this is an estimate that may vary if your family has other income).  The way this is calculated will be different in your first two years than in the following years.  The first two years on a J-1 teacher visa, you pay 0 (zero) in FICA taxes (social security/medicare), and you pay more in federal taxes to offset that.  After your first two calendar years, you pay almost 8% of your income in FICA taxes and you receive some benefits that will have your federal tax rate lower.  Both ways add up to about 15%; it is just distributed a little differently.

Why is it important to file the right form?  Teachers who file the 1040 when they should be filing the 1040-NR are basically trying to get the “best of both worlds” — pay 0 in FICA taxes AND pay the lower amount of federal taxes.  Some teachers do this without understanding the difference; other teachers do it because a friend or co-teacher told them to; others may do it because they want to pay less in taxes.  Whatever the reason, it is a little like a student who is dishonest on a test to get a better grade.  If the IRS finds the error, there are penalties and consequences (it is called tax fraud). See the diagram below for information on being a resident vs. a non-resident for tax purposes.

Will I owe taxes or get a refund?  The US tax system is “pay as you go.”  That means that the government is going to estimate how much you will owe in taxes for the whole year and will take a little bit out of each paycheck so that hopefully when you file your taxes, the amount they have taken out (withheld) will be about equal to what you should have paid for the year.  If they took out too much each paycheck, they may owe you a refund.  If they didn’t take out quite enough, you may owe them.  In the end, every teacher is going to pay about the same percentage of their income in taxes — those that get a refund were getting less in their “take home pay” throughout the year, and those who have to pay when they submit their tax return received a little more in their paychecks throughout the year.

If I use Sprintax, how much will it cost (see more tips below)? The base cost of using Sprintax to file a federal and a state return will be around $90-$100. If you have dependents, there will be an extra charge (about $16 per dependent) to include the 8843 form that they need to file every year (even if they don’t have income).   It will also cost more if you are fixing a return that you filed somewhere else (filing an amended return).  We have a discount code each year that will take some off the cost of using Sprintax.  Please ask us if you need that information.  You can choose to download the forms directly from the IRS website and file them yourself for free instead, but be prepared to do a lot of reading and research!