filing taxes for UK national in the US

My DF worked for 5 months in the US in 2008 before moving back to the UK.  I'm trying to do his taxes right now and I know I need to fill out 1040NR.  Is this the only form I have to fill out for him?

Also, the university where he worked sent him a W-2 and a 1042-S (Forieng Person's US Source Income Subject to Withholding).  The W-2 lists that he made a few thousand more than the 1042-S did.  When it's asking for his total income and says to attach a W-2, do I enter what is listed on the W-2 or should I be amending this and using the 1042-S? 

So confused! 

updated to add that i am seriously confused over this... he was on a J-1 visa for just over 2 years and in 2008 had medicare, social security, federal, etc. withheld. 

does this mean he can simply file a 1040-nr and claim the standard deduction?  do i still need to submit a 1042-s for him?  i've googled for hours looking for the answer, but have had no luck! 

Maybe you should try turbo tax it will queue any necessary forms based on the answers you provide and then populate them in the appropriate areas. That's all I can think of. It is the weekend and the weather is OK, you might have to hang on a bit longer for anyone else who might have any ideas. Or, you may just have to break down and have a tax professional do it for you.

thanks-- i tried using hr block's system but it said they didn't support the forms we would need.  will try turbo tax to see if that's any better...  really trying not to use a professional because we have huge expenses coming up with my move over there and i hate to pay more money for help than he would even get back...but i don't want to make any mistakes, either.  i've been too busy thinking of my own tax situation that i didn't take into account how confused his would make me! 

It sounds as if he needs to file a 1040NR plus a Commonwealth of Mass return - you don't provide enogh detail to know if he is resident for State purposes or what deductions he has.

He will have to report the same income on his UK return if he was only there for 5 months.

I just filed US taxes as a UK citizen - I was a PhD student in the US for 7 months last year and I used the guidance given on the International Office webpage for my US university to do it (in the form of pdf files and a powerpoint presentation). I'm hoping that I've done it right .

I filed forms 8843 and 1040NR-EZ. I believe I was considered non-resident for both state and federal tax purposes. I received a W-2 and a 1042-S form and according to the 1040NR-EZ guidance, I had to add the amount withheld on 1042-S to the amount of tax paid on the W-2 form (line 18 of 1040NR-EZ) to give the total amount of tax that I paid in 2008.

If I understand it corrently, the 1042-S form details the amount of money that was withheld from him because he was a foreigner (or something to that effect) and is what he can claim back on top of taxes paid (I had a strange situation with it because I suddenly got a bill from the university in January stating that I owed them $124 - even though I left the US last August. Apparently this was part of the foreign withholding amount on my 1042-S form, which is billed in January each year... I was required to pay it to the university and was told I would then get a refund through filing my taxes).

thanks for the initial responses!

i'm starting to make some sense of this now... so DF was employed as a post-doc researcher begininning feb 2006 and employed through may 2008.  he moved back to the uk at the end of june 2008. 

from what i can tell, the 1042-s form would represent his earnings that were tax-exempt through feb 08 since that falls within the 2 year non-resident exemption?  and the w-2 would represent feb-may because he went over the 2 year exemption? 

i've read that you have to file a regular 1040 if you go over the 2 years (not sure if this is accurate)...but since he moved back to the uk in june, should he just file a 1040nr?  he had somewhere between 3-4 months over the 2 year exemption status. 

and i assume i just fill out the mass. state form like normal? 

thank you again for the help!!

OK - the 2 years is a treaty limit.  He had a J-1 so he not resident because his days don't count so can't file a 1040. He files a 1040NR reporting the entire years's earnings and can't claim exemption under the treaty since he blew the 2 year limit.  He also files the 8843 to show the J-1 visa.

thanks for your response, guya.

just a quick follow-up:  when you say entire year's earnings, do you mean just his earnings in the us?

also, just to clarify: would i still need to fill out the part about the 1042-s in the space where it asks for it on the 1040nr? or because he went over the two year treaty, does what he earned in january/february (before his two years were up) now get taxed and i just pretend like the 1042-s form that the university sent doesn't exist? 

sorry, but i've confused myself even more now, so i'm posting yet again...

looking at his w-2 and the 1042-s forms, what is listed on the 1042-s is NOT included on his w-2.  so in order to report his total year's income, would i need to combine this myself and list the total of the two forms in the boxes where it is asking me for total gross income from the w-2??  or would i only list what it says on the w-2 and list the 1042-s income someplace else? 

new development: just spoke to DF and he says he didn't elect into the 2 year treaty because he knew he would be here over 2 years.  does this make a difference in how he should file now?  should he file as a resident alien?

this is the only other advice we can find online about his situation, but i'm not sure how much to trust it:

okay... after more research, this is what we can come up with:

he would be considered a resident from jan through june 2008 and we need to figure out how to report both w-2 and 1042-s gross income.

he needs to file a dual-status return, form 1040nr with form 1040 as dual status attachment.

then he needs to send a form to end his residency as of june 2008 along with this.

At the risk of repeating myself he is not and never was a resident alien because of the J visa.  This visa meant that the days he was in the US did not count for the substantial presence test under Code section 7701(b).  Therefore he was not resident and just pays US tax on US source income - all of it...

THANK YOU! 

i looked up the code you mentioned and i get it now.  there's so much misinformation on the web...was hard to sort through.

thanks again!

I hope you got it all sorted in the end .

For reference, I just received my federal tax refund by direct deposit into my US bank account... it was exactly what I calculated it to be on my 1040NR-EZ (from my W2 and 1042-S) and so it seems I actually did it correctly (filing forms 1040NR-EZ and 8843) ! I'm still waiting on the state tax refund, but at least the federal one I filed went through okay, because that was for a much higher amount .