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Thanks, but IIRC that is not the whole story: Once you receive a green card, tax days retroactively go back to the first day in which you were legally in the country that year in the status that switched you to a green card - even if you fail the substantial presence test; e.g., you get married to an american citizen outside the US, you both move into the US on 1-Apr, apply for a marriage-based green card, move out of the US a month later*, come back december 20th and receive the green card -- at that point, even though you only spent 40 days in the US (thus failing the substantial presence test), your "us tax payer date" goes back to 1-Apr, which would make you a (partial year) US tax payer for 8 months. How that interacts with visas or parole, I have no idea, but I know someone whose tax issues were very complicated because of such an issue. I guess you are right in that the substantial presence test is the default, and some visas have exceptions one way, and green card the other - but I would urge anyone who might be affected by these issues to be very very diligent with respect to tax laws. And .. we haven't touched state tax laws, which are similar but not exactly the same as federal laws (and vary between states). And there's also the concept of domicile, which makes everything even crazier. |