What types of taxes do international students pay?
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, "The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
​
According to Internal Revenue Service (IRS), international students are classified as nonresidents of the United States for U.S. tax purposes. Nonresidents are the foreign students, scholars, trainees who hold "F-1, J-1, M-1, or Q" visas. As most international students might hear, nonresidents who hold those visas are all qualified for working and getting paid legally in the U.S., but they will pay for their income taxes to the U.S. federal government based on the amount of the salaries they earned from the institutions.
​
Nonetheless, including but not limited to income taxes; wages and compensation, tips, interests, dividends, scholarships, and fellowship grants, and prizes and rewards are also required to pay if international students have qualified for those taces types.
​
The income tax we discuss previously is applied to federal tax law. Besides federal tax law, nonresidents are also required to pay income taxes to the states based on various tax laws in different states. But there are few exemptions. For instance, New Hamshire and Tennessee are only required nonresidents to pay the investments incomes, instead of earned incomes.
Read More:
