As April 15 approaches, people are getting busy preparing tax returns. As specified in the IRS tax code, aliens do get some sorts of special tax treatments.
It is very important for aliens to understand their tax rights and the tax benefits you can take advantage of.
In this article, I will explain the ABCs of filing tax returns to get you started.

Disclaimer: I am netiher a tax attorney nor a tax accountant. Seek professional advice before you apply any suggestions from this article.

So let's get started.

1. Identify your immigration status defined in the IRS tax code. Basically, you need to know whether you are a RESIDENT ALIEN or a NONRESIDENT ALIEN and the tax implications for eath of these two categories.


2. Determine the tax treaties between your home country and America. In this article, I will assume most of the readers of this article are Chinese citizens. As a result of tax treaties between China and the US, you will get $5000 tax exemptions depending on your filing status.
Note: for all all nonresident aliens from countries other than india, NO STANDARD EXEMPTIONS apply. For India citizens, instead of special tax exemptions, STANDARD EXEMPTIONS can be claimed based on your current immigration status.


3. Itemized exemptions, standard exemptions and personal exemptions. For most people reading this article, this will be the most important part of your tax return. You will save a lot of tax money if you read this thoroughly. This is the part where insurance, investments in real estates, annuities products and mortages, car  sutdent or any other types loans etc. take into effect to determine your taxable incomes. Depending on your marginal tax rates, you may find different ways to allocate your personal assets to minimize your tax liabilities. I strongly recommend you ALL SEEK PROFESSIONAL TAX ADVICE on this part.