Jerseygirl

Get the company to pay for an accountant who is experienced in US/UK tax law.

Bob

Oooooh....you're in for a rude awakening.

The company should be sorting this out for you though. You don't want to be considered a independent contractor type of person but an employee, which means they are paying a small bucket of extra cash on top for employer taxes to match your taxes, in a massively over simplified gist of things.

No doubt, it is very complicated, especially for short term stay in the US and/or the first/last year in the US if you stay longer term.

Michael

The only thing you originally have to do is fill out a W-4 form that the US branch gives you. This is a form that the company uses to determine how much to withhold from any income paid. If someone is single or married but only one spouse is working and they claim the standard deduction (don't itemize deductions) and will likely be working the full year, the form is easy to fill out since the amount to be withheld (both federal and state) is based on an annual salary.

Since you will only be working a partial year and likely to be classified as a non resident alien for tax purposes, it is likely that you will pay less taxes taxes than someone that works the full year. Now you could just fill out the W-4 as if you would be working the full year and just claim a refund when you file the tax form by April 15th of the following year or you can fudge the W-4 form to whatever you desire. That is legal and at times I have changed my W-4 form several times per year as I received income from other sources that didn't have tax withheld.

Because of the complexity of US tax law, the W-4 is just an estimate of what you think you will owe over the full year and the government wants you to have enough taxes withheld to pay within $1,000 of the taxes owed at the end of the year. However there are so many rules that allow you to avoid a tax penalty for under withholding taxes.

So everyone in the US files a tax return between January 1 and April 15th of the following year to resolve any differences where you will either get a refund or pay additional taxes owed.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

mathilda_wilde

by the way, who are you people. how come you know so much about US immigration. did you study it?

Jerseygirl

We are pixel people.

mathilda_wilde

:P no really how do you all know all this stuff in great detail. are you paid to be on here answering questions? i am actually curious.

anyway yeah thanks a lot for the info. uhh still very confusing though. so is it that i only file for these taxes after i've finished my work over there? or do i have to register myself somewhere before i get there?

and the company i work for, although they really are my employer, all of us who work for them work on a freelance basis. i deal with photography for publications and am involved in selling and i get a cut of the price they eventually go for. and we work pretty much depending on what's happening with current events so it is kind of like i'm a contractor. but working just for them. anyway, their accountant then does our taxes here at the end of the year. can i just let them handle all this? i assumed they would. but then i assumed they would the usual time they do every year, so i wouldn't have anything to show officials at the airport when i get there.

i'm so worried about what kind of documentation i NEED to show, either when i enter the country or if i leave at some point to come back here then try and re-enter because i've had issues with a visa in the past. i was never told what documentation i needed and just assumed i didn't need any, and was denied a visa. but this was just when i went travelling a while back.

ian-mstm

Thanks! Lucky was a red sable Pomeranian - and an award winner! She went to doggy heaven almost 10 years ago as the result of an auto-immune disease. This is how I honor her memory.

Ian

Michael

Are you going to be an independent contractor or an employee that works on commission? One is allowed and the other is not.

An employee has an employer that pays certain government taxes, pays for unemployment insurance, workman's compensation, maybe pays for health insurance and other benefits, and manages the employee. The employer must follow certain tax and other regulations.

An independent contractor is on their own to pay both the employer as well as the employee taxes and provide his/her own benefits and is not taxed for certain government benefits but is also not eligible for those benefits. For example, if you are an independent contractor, you can't pay for workman's compensation but if you have an accident on a job site, you lose all your income and will not get any government assistance. Also you need to file quarterly estimated taxes instead of having taxes withheld by the employer.

If you are an employee working on commission, all you need to do is fill out the W-4 and file a tax return at the end of the year and the employer handles the payroll and withholds and pays your taxes and their taxes based on your income. Even when on a commission, there are minimum wage standards and other things that an employer must follow.

Bob

We're made up people

But most of the information is either from experience, or spending to much time on BE