Consider Completing A New Form W-4: Fill & Download for Free

Complete Form W-4 so that your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay. Consider completing a new Form W-4 each year and when your personal or financial situation changes.You may contact your employer and complete a Form W-4 to reduce your exemptions. This will change the amount that is withheld for taxes from your paycheck. Here is the website for Form W-4: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

I’m breaking from my moratorium on answering Quora questions to write this answer for several reasons:The other answers to this question are terribly bad, and might well lead a person to make a harmful decision for themselves;This question is one where a close and careful reading of the question allows a careful reader to discover a number of facts that other answer writers incorrectly dismiss as “irrelevant”; andThis is exceedingly unlikely to be a Quora Partner Program question.With that preamble, let’s get to work.Here’s the scenario:If your spouse's H4 is pending and you have been on an H1B since last month, can you withhold taxes as "married" in the U.S.?What can we conclude from this about Person A (who I am going to call Sanjay, because I can)? OQ, if your name isn’t Sanjay, or if you’re actually female, my apologies.Sanjay is presently resident in the United States in H-1B status, and has been in that status for roughly a month.This question was asked in early November, 2019. This leads me to suspect that Sanjay entered the United States and commenced his employment on or about October 1, 2019. I am going to assume that prior to October 1, 2019, Sanjay has not resided or worked in the United States. (The timing is strongly suggestive that Sanjay is a first-time H-1B beneficiary, since first-time H-1Bs are normally issued valid from October 1.)Sanjay is married to someone who does not presently reside in the United States. I’m going to call Sanjay’s spouse Yamini, again for no particular reason.Yamini does not at this time reside in the United States, but has a pending application for an H-4 visa.What Sanjay is asking us to do is provide him with advice on whether he should elect to withhold as “married” or as “single” on his W-4 form to be filed with his employer. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to provide Sanjay with any real advice; this is because one or more of the assumptions I made above might be incorrect.First, let’s point out that under the assumptions above, Sanjay will not be a US resident taxpayer for 2019; he has only been present in the United States for about 90 days in 2019 and no days in 2018 or 2017, and thus does not meet the substantial presence test. His 2019 tax return will be a nonresident return; he will pay taxes on only his US-source income, as a nonresident. He should withhold as single for 2019 because there is no exemption or standard deduction allowed for a spouse on a nonresident return. On a nonresident return, being married is of no relevance; the tax one pays will be the same without regard to whether one is married. Nonresident aliens who work in the United States always file Form W-4 as if they were single, even if they are married. This will be true even if Yamini’s visa is issued and she arrives in the US before the end of 2019.The scenario for 2020 will be different. In 2020, Sanjay will almost certainly be a US resident for tax purposes (unless he leaves the US before roughly the end of April). If Yamini’s visa is granted and she arrives and takes up residence early enough in the year, she will be too, and they will presumably file a joint return, which will allow Sanjay to file a new W-4 for 2020 claiming the more beneficial withholding rates that apply to married status.Of course, the scenario changes if the second assumption I made above, that Sanjay first arrived in the United States on or about October 1, 2019, is not correct. If Sanjay has any prior US residence, be it in 2019, 2018, or 2017, it is possible that he will meet the substantial presence test for 2019, and will thus have to file a resident return in 2019. (But note that presence in F-1 status does not, in most cases, count as “presence” for this purpose; thus, if Sanjay was a foreign student prior to getting his H-1B, he might still be a nonresident alien for 2019 despite having been in the US for several years. Unless, of course, he did post-graduation OPT, or took more than four years to complete his degree for some reason; the exclusion for F-1 is valid for only five years.) And this is where it gets truly hairy: this is the situation in which a US resident taxpayer has a nonresident alien spouse, which is one of those “pull-your-hair-out” situations in US tax law.A nonresident alien married to a US taxpayer has the option to elect to be treated as a US taxpayer in order to allow his or her spouse to file a joint return, which allows the US taxpayer to benefit from the more favorable deductions and credits available to joint returns. If the nonresident alien spouse does not agree to elect to be treated as a US taxpayer, the resident taxpayer may only file a married-filing-separate return, which will usually result in him or her paying more taxes that he or she would under a married-filing-jointly return. In many situations, it thus makes sense to make this election.However, there are a number of caveats to this election. First, it makes the entire worldwide income of the nonresident alien spouse taxable in the United States. If the nonresident alien spouse works outside the US or has any other non-US-sourced income, this might result in the couple ultimately paying more tax. Second, this election is persistent: once made, it remains in effect for all subsequent tax years until revoked. Once revoked, it can never be reinstated. The decision whether to make (or revoke) a nonresident alien spouse election can be one of the more difficult ones in US tax law to make, and if you are a taxpayer in this situation you really need to consult with a tax professional because the consequences of this election can result in substantial changes in tax liability. Which option makes sense for any particular tax payer requires a careful examination of the present and anticipated future income of both spouses. Fortunately, you have three years to make this decision; you can make it up to three years after the fact by amending past returns.Since we have none of this information in this scenario, no advice—beyond “ask a professional”—can be provided.So, “Sanjay”, the advice I would give you would be to file your W-4 as single for 2019. This is simply because this is the “safe” choice: filing a W-4 as single when you’d be entitled to the married table just results in you being overwithheld. There is no penalty for overwithholding; you’ll get it back when you file your return. However, there are penalties for underwithholding, which could happen if you file a W-4 as married but ultimately have to file a married-filing-separately (or nonresident) return. I would also advise you to consult with a tax professional to prepare your 2019 tax return. US taxes are confusing enough for lifetime US residents; for those coming from other countries, they are even more so. Furthermore the advice that you’ll get from lifelong US citizens (such as that in the other answers to this question) is likely to be wrong because most lifelong US citizens are completely unaware of all the special tax rules that apply to noncitizens who have US income.Note also that you can “file” W-4 as often as you like; thus, it makes sense to promptly provide your employer with a W-4 claiming single status and an appropriate number of exemptions, then consult with a tax professional; if the advice you get from that professional includes refiling your W-4 in a different status, you can do that at any time. Note also that if you never file a W-4 your employer will treat you as if you had filed a W-4 claiming single, zero exemptions. This will almost always result in overwithholding, but again, you will get the overwithholding back when you file your return. You are not legally required to provide your employer with Form W-4. Note finally that Form W-4 is transmitted to the IRS only under unusual circumstances (typically, when fraud is suspected); under normal circumstances Form W-4 is used only by your employer to compute tax withholding. All the IRS knows is how much you earned and how much was withheld.A final caveat: this analysis has not considered the potential impact of any tax treaties that might exist between the United States and the country (or countries) of which Sanjay and Yamini are nationals of, or in which Yamini presently resides. These must also be considered in making a determination of Sanjay’s and Yamini’s tax liabilities. Since we don’t know what country or countries those are (my completely arbitrary choice of names suggests that they are Indian, but for all I know they’re from somewhere else entirely), no advice can be provided in this forum.

As with all tax questions, “It depends.”What does your W-4 reflect?7.65% for your portion of FICA/Medicare (Maxing out at $118,000 for the FICA; might have to check that #; Medicare tax keeps deducting.)Federal Income Tax; again, depends on your choice on the W4.Generally speaking, the payroll company computes each paycheck as if it we annualized; deriving a gross income, then taxed according to that calculation.So they are taxing you on income of approximately $300,000, cross referencing your W-4, and withholding according to that formula.W-4: Complete this form so that your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay. Consider completing a new Form W-4 each year and when your personal or financial situation changes.IRS Withholding Calculator