How to best fill out W-4 form as a non-citizen medical intern?

[otherstuff12321]

I’m a new medical intern, working in the US but I’m not a US citizen. I’m a “nonresident alien” for tax purposes and I wasn’t sure what to do with the W-4 form I had received.

It seems that nonresident aliens have certain unique rules, like they aren’t allowed to file as married and cannot claim a standard deduction. However, they are exempt from social security and Medicare taxes.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this scenario and would know how to go about filling this form? I was thinking about expected itemized deductions but I’m not really sure what an intern who’s not even a citizen would be able to write off to begin with. I am also planning on rescinding my tax residency in my home country.

Should I just fill out the essentials to this form and submit as is? Or is there any tips I could follow to save money?

Thank you!

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[The White Coat Investor]

Well you learn something new every day. Crazy that you can't get a standard deduction or file as married. I didn't know that but it does appear to be true.

At any rate, mostly you just want to have more withheld and that's what the W-4 does.

So I'd check the single box in part 1. Skip part 2 and part 3. And maybe consider putting a little extra on 4c. How much? Who knows. You'd have to estimate your taxes to really know. At any rate, even if you are underwithheld, you just make up for it by writing a check next April. I think I'd guess 5-10% of your gross and see how that goes and maybe adjust it up for next year if you have to write a big check in April.

 

[otherstuff12321]

Well you learn something new every day. Crazy that you can't get a standard deduction or file as married. I didn't know that but it does appear to be true.

At any rate, mostly you just want to have more withheld and that's what the W-4 does.

So I'd check the single box in part 1. Skip part 2 and part 3. And maybe consider putting a little extra on 4c. How much? Who knows. You'd have to estimate your taxes to really know. At any rate, even if you are underwithheld, you just make up for it by writing a check next April. I think I'd guess 5-10% of your gross and see how that goes and maybe adjust it up for next year if you have to write a big check in April.

Hello Dr. Dahle!

Quite an honor having the White Coat Investor himself respond to my post.

I ended up submitting my W-4 with no changes to part 4. My employer has since then withheld ~9% of my most recent paycheck for federal withholding (whereas only ~5% was withheld for federal withholding on the previous one before the W-4). These numbers don’t include FICA, which was refunded after they erroneously withheld it from my first paycheck. I did open a Roth account and I am investing 6% of my paycheck but as far as I know, that makes no difference here.

So it seems being a nonresident alien results in higher taxes. In my case it’s about 4% which equates to about an additional $2,200+ paid in annual taxes due to lack of standard deduction even with the exemption from FICA. I never knew about this discrepancy either and it seems like there’s no way around it. It also doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere so hopefully this brings some light to it.