Wednesday, February 20, 2013

State Tax Workshop Registration


International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) recommends that students register for the State Tax Workshops using iStart

After signing in, please choose Session Sign-ups in the left-hand column where you’ll choose the date and time. You will not receive a confirmation email but you can confirm your request has been successfully processed by viewing the session you have registered in your iStart account.




Keep up-to-date with the latest information from Georgia Tech’s International Student and Scholar Services with their bi-weekly newsletter, InTECHnational News. InTECH includes important immigration information and upcoming events and opportunities for Georgia Tech’s international population. Past issues and the current issue of InTECHnational News can be found at http://oie.gatech.edu/isss/intechnational-news

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

March 2013 Visa Bulletin


EB-2 China Will Advance One Month, But Still No Movement for EB-2 India

According to the State Department’s March 2013 Visa Bulletin, the EB-2 category will advance by one month for China, to February 15, 2008, and will remain current for all other countries except India, which will remain at a cut-off date of September 1, 2004. 

March 2013 Visa Bulletin, Employment-Based Immigrant Visas

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Delays in Cases Appearing in USCIS Case Status Online

AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 13020801 (posted Feb. 8, 2013)

Expect a 30-45-day delay between when your application or petition is filed and when your information is available in Case Status Online, depending on the volume of applications USCIS receives.

Check your case status here: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/Dashboard/CaseStatus.do


Friday, February 8, 2013

State Tax Workshop Schedule

Federal tax returns must be filled out before attending a State Tax Workshop. Please bring to the workshop your completed federal form (1040NR or 1040NR-EZ) as well as all W-2, 1042-S and 1099 forms you have received.

Workshop # Date Time Location (Building #) Room #
1 Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:00 PM Klaus (153) 1116 West
2 Tuesday, February 26, 2013 2:00 PM Klaus (153) 1116 West
3 Friday, March 08, 2013 3:00 PM Instructional Center (055) Room 205
4 Tuesday, March 12, 2013 1:00 PM Klaus (153) 1116 West
5 Thursday, March 21, 2013 9:30 AM Instructional Center (055) Room 103
6 Wednesday, March 27, 2013 9:00 AM Klaus (153) 1116 West
7 Tuesday, April 02, 2013 11:00 AM Klaus (153) 1116 East
8 Friday, April 05, 2013 9:00 AM Instructional Center (055) Room 105
9 Monday, April 08, 2013 3:30 PM Instructional Center (055) Room 105
10 Friday, April 12, 2013 2:00 PM Instructional Center (055) Room 103
All workshops last approximately 1 hour.


View Tax Workshop Map in a larger map

Friday, February 1, 2013

January Paycheck Not What You Expected?


What is “FICA” and why is it making my paycheck smaller?

“FICA” (which stands for "Federal Insurance Contributions Act") refers to the payroll taxes withheld from your salary that fund both the US Social Security and Medicare programs. Employees who are full-time students, nonresident alien students (F-1s/J-1s) and nonresident alien scholars (J-1s in the first two years of their program) do not have to pay FICA taxes.

If you are required to pay FICA taxes, the Medicare contribution is identified as “Fed MED/EE” and the Social Security contribution is identified as “Fed OASDI/EE” on your paycheck. The Medicare contribution is 1.45% of your taxable income. In January 2013, the employee’s share of the Social Security payroll tax was increased to 6.2% of your taxable income due to the expiration of payroll tax cuts which had been in place for the past two years. Previously, the contribution was 4.2%. The result is smaller paychecks for all FICA-eligible wage earners regardless of citizenship or treaty status as no tax treaty will exempt employees’ FICA taxes.

Note: Some of you may have been exempt in 2012 because of your nonresident tax status, but that status may have changed in 2013 and you are paying FICA for the first time.  If you are unsure, check your GLACIER tax summary for information on when you can expect to start paying FICA taxes.