Resident Alien
Categories: International
Not E.T.
A “resident alien” is a person who (1) is not a United States citizen, but (2) is a physical resident of the United States, and (3) must fight a bunch of zombie scientists in order to escape a secret military facility. Wait, scratch that last part—that’s Resident Evil, not “resident alien.” Totally different. (Hopefully.)
Anyway, we’ve all heard of Green Cards, right? (The permit, not the 1990 rom-com. We’re done making movie references.) In order to be considered a resident alien, a person has to pass one of two tests: the Green Card test—which is basically a one-question exam consisting of, “Do you have a Green Card?”—or the substantial presence test, which makes sure the wannabe resident alien has physically been in the U.S. for 31 days out of the current calendar year and 183 days total over the last three years, including this year.
Just to complicate things a little further, none of those 183 days of physical presence can be due to any of the following four reasons: 1) we’re a student here on a student visa, 2 )we work for a foreign government and are in the U.S. doing foreign government stuff, 3) we’re a foreign athlete here to play some sportsball with the Americans, or 4) we’re a foreign teacher here on a teacher visa.
If we pass one of those tests, we then fall into one of three resident alien categories: “conditional,” which means we’re here on a temporary Green Card; “permanent,” which means we’ve been granted permanent legal status as an American resident; or “returning,” which means we were once here, but then we left for a while, and now we’re back.
This whole “resident alien” thing serves to determine the answer to one single question: does this person need to pay U.S. taxes? That’s what the whole thing is about: taxes. Resident alien-ness has nothing to do with citizenship, immigration status, or any of that. It’s all…about…the taxes. And if we are a resident alien, then guess what? The answer to the tax question is a resounding “yes...you gotta pay 'em.”
There are a few special considerations when it comes to the actual filing of the taxes, but by and large, resident aliens are subject to the same tax laws as the rest of us. Even if they turn out to be mad zombie scientists.
