Hi, I am a Non-US Citizen (here on F1 OPT and will soon get my H1B in October).
I have a few bank accounts�some of them are purely online accounts�and I have an online Investment Account as well. I remember when I opened an Account with Chase, they asked me to fill out a Form W8-BEN. But I opened these other online accounts, they never asked me to fill out Form W8-BEN nor W9. All they asked was my SSN, and I assumed, they could check what my Tax Status/Category is from the SSN I provided.
In the past 5 years, I filed Taxes as a Non-Resident Alien, and this is my final year filing taxes as a Non-Resident Alien as I've been on F1 for the last 5 years. From 2016 onward, I will file taxes as Resident Alien.
I have a full-time job (I use my F1 OPT as the Work Authorization), pay my Federal and State taxes every year (but no Medicare and Social Security taxes withheld as I'm still on F1 OPT), filled out Form I-9 on the 1st day of Employment as well. I also recently started a 2nd job (part-time, weekend only, for a few hours) as an Independent Contractor (Work For Hire) and so I filled out a W9 Form as well.
So now, I have filled out different forms and am not sure what my REAL Status is as far as tax filing is concerned. I have filled out Form I-9 for my Full-time Job, Form W8-BEN for some of my bank accounts, and Form W9 for my 2nd job. As far as I know, you can only have either Form W8-BEN or W9 and not both.
And I've bumped into a few issues recently. I reached out to my Online Bank and Online Investment Bank Company asking them about filling out and submitting Form W8-BEN. I did submit a completed Form W8-BEN to my Online Bank and recently I got a letter from them saying that my Account would be closed because I'm not a US resident. Really? I mean, non-US residents can't have a bank account here? Secondly, the Online Investment Company also informed me that they can only allow US residents to have an account with them, although they haven't taken any further actions (closing my Account).
And as far as I know too, non-US residents can and are allowed to have investments here. So how do they do it? What forms do they use?
1 Answer from Attorneys
As a rule of thumb, IRS applies a "substantial presence" test to determine if you should be treated as a resident for income tax purposes. Your immigration status could affect this determination, as could any treaty between USA and your home country. Yours is a complicated situation. My advice, see a tax professional.
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