We are now open to help you prepare your 2023 taxes!
Who is eligible to access our services
Our mission is to provide tax services to international students, scholars, teachers, and researchers. Generally, this means individuals that are present in the U.S. on an F, J, M, or Q visa who are nonresident aliens. We also provide support to U.S. tax residents. To provide these services, we operate an IRS VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) tax clinic. We partner with The NonResident Tax Help Group (NoRTH) to provide free access to tax software, tools, guides, and assistance by IRS trained and certified volunteers.
We grant free, no cost membership to individuals who:
Have a school, nonprofit, or government email address. These email addresses generally end in .edu, .org, or .gov. Other organization email addresses, or those from organizations that are based outside of the U.S., may have a different ending, but can also meet our criteria.
Support another IRS VITA tax clinic that assists international students, scholars, teachers, and researchers.
Our services are made available thanks to grants from the IRS and Minnesota Department of Revenue. We cannot provide the general public with access due to IRS/TaxSlayer restrictions. We limit access by requiring individuals to request a free membership, and grant it to those who meet the above requirements. Please note that not all individuals who qualify for membership may be in scope for tax assistance - see below for further information about our scope.
NoRTH also partners with other schools and organizations to provide dedicated memberships for their students. This allows us and them to provide information and services that are specific to each school. For example, members with the NRVTAP site have access to schedule appointments for In-Person tax clinics held at the University of Minnesota. We also can customize your membership pages with information specific to each organization, such as how to find your W-2 or student account information on One-Stop, Minnesota state tax information. If you request a NRVTAP membership and do not have a University of Minnesota email (@umn.edu) your membership may be modified to switch you to your organization’s specific membership, or to the NoRTH general membership.
Clinic Scope
Out of Scope Situations
Unfortunately we are not able to provide assistance for all situations. The following is a list of some of the situations that are out of scope for our assistance. If you have a question about if your situation is within scope, please contact us at: taxassistance@nrvtap.com.
If you have out of scope income you can still use TaxSlayer to prepare your return, but we will not be able to provide guidance about how to do so.
Income over $79,000. Note: this is a software limit, and you won’t be able to prepare a return if your income is over this amount.
This income limit has increased this year. However, we no longer have access to any other software options if you are over the income limit. Please see the link below for further information.
Some state income tax returns. We support MN, CA, PA, NC, MC, OH, and WI returns. The software supports the other states, but we can’t help you do them.
Treaty benefits for income types other than wages, scholarships, dividends, and capital gains
Self-employment income (1099-NEC or 1099-MISC)
Per IRS rules, we can help with this for residents, but not for nonresident aliens. Here is a free resource that may help you no matter your federal tax residency status: Self Employment Tax Guide from My Free Taxes
We CAN assist with 1099-Misc forms received from the State of Minnesota for the One-Time Tax Rebate for everyone (nonresidents and residents).
Income earned outside of the U.S.
Amended returns
Prior year (2022 or earlier) returns
Cryptocurrency or other digital assets
The University of Minnesota International Student & Scholar Services group has put together some additional information that you might find helpful here: UofM ISSS Taxes
You MUST use your organization email account for your membership request. General email accounts (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.) are not allowed.