Bulent

Hello there:

I posted this question to misc.taxes, but it looks like they do not
know too much about tax issues when immigration is involved.

I am a green card holder, my spouse is on F-1 OPT. We will choose to
file our tax return as "Married filing jointly" since IRS permits this
situation. She is currently self-employed - if we filed her tax
return as 1040NR, she would not have to pay self employment tax, which
is really the Medicare and Soc. Sec. taxes. However, since we choose
to go with a joint return, she will be treated as a resident for IRS
regulations, and will have to pay self employment tax. Is this going
to be a problem at Social Security and INS? The reason I am asking is
because INS regards her as a nonresident alien and if she pays the
self employment tax, this will show up in SS records and they may
alert INS and let them know that she is working illegally as a
resident alien.

Any thoughts?

Thank you