For Current Participants: IIE’s Participant Tax Service Information

Tax Services for International Students

Many international students and trainees are unfamiliar with U.S. tax law and may inadvertently file an incorrect tax return or fail to file any tax return. This can cause serious problems and may endanger their visa status. Some participants seek the help of professional tax return preparers, but these services can be quite expensive because very few commercial preparers have expertise in the complex field of nonresident alien scholarship taxation.

GRANTAX, IIE’s participant tax service, will provide professional assistance (through IIE’s participant tax service group as well as a third party tax preparation provider) to scholarship recipients in filing appropriate Federal and State tax returns. The filing fee associated with these services has been budgeted for each visitor.

Participant Taxes for Projects in the U.S.

IIE has solid institutional experience in providing administrative support in connection with tax as required by U.S. law. The Institute provides administrative functions related to completing ITIN request forms, and facilitating participant communications. IIE also facilitates the completion of participant returns through an outside tax service who is responsible to guide the participants for preparing and completing all tax forms, confirming that tax withholding is done correctly and that tax returns are filed on time each year.

The following provides an overview of IIE Participant Tax Services for participants and sponsors. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions about these services.

Foreign Participants 

For foreign participants in the U.S., IIE’s Participant tax service team prepares and files IRS Form 1042S. It is mandatory for some of IIE’s sponsored participants to file their tax returns through IIE’s participant tax service, but not every IIE participant is offered the tax preparation service. If you are a current IIE participant, please consult your grant document, Terms of Appointment or Scholarship letter or contact your IIE advisor to ask if you qualify for the service.

Sponsors

When IIE’s participant tax service provides federal and state tax filing services to various programs and sponsors; specifically, IIE will be authorized to:

• Receive and inspect the students’ tax information;
• Develop an equalization schedule to determine the sponsor and participants’ tax refund or liability; and
• Collect the sponsor’s tax refunds from the participants.

If you are a sponsor and you have questions about our tax services, please send an e­-mail to tax@iie.org.