Taxes - non resident

Not necessarily.

We do not have enough information to provide you with a definitive answer. Here is what is needed:

- Which 183+ days were you resident in the US?

- What visa are you in the US under?

- When was your previous US tax return for? Which tax year?

- Have you ever applied for US residency or citizenship before?

If you came to the US in 2010 and stayed in the US since that point to the end of the year and never filed a US return and your visa allows you to be a resident of the US, then the tax preparer is correct as you are an emmigrant to the US and declare the income from the point of arrival to the end of the year.

If you came to the US in 2009, left and returned to the US during 2010 and everything else remains the same, then you declare the other income as you were resident the full year.

Other cases do apply.

Hello, the Visa is E1, which is a non resident alien Visa. In past years (2010 included) I lived almost the entire year in USA so I have always declared the entire income. With a new contract now every year I work the months of February, March, September and December in Italy for the italian HQ, and the other months in the US soil for the american branch (in both cases I am officially employed by the italian HQ and I receive the paycheck from them). In this case should the income for those 4 months be included in the american tax return?

You certainly don't qualify as an emigrant or immigrant. The indication is that you were in the US before and after the tax year. So, it does appear you have to declare all income for the entire year on the US tax return. However, you may elect to use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) or the Foreign Tax Credit (FTC). In general, the latter is better but your situation may turn out better for the former.

Please note that the preparer in the first part of your question may have been referring to the former, that is declaring then excluding the foreign income. However, your explanation appears that there was a step missed.

Does he have to declare his worldwide income on the US tax return or just the US income?

If you have a visa that lets you file 1040, thus taking allowing you to take the standard deduction, various credits, like H-1 or I think F-1 after you've been in the country for 5 years, then do you have to file 1040? Can you elect to file or not file 1040? If you're making millions in dividends in your home country on non-US stocks, it might be better to file 1040-NR because the income won't get onto your US tax return, and it might not be in the foreign tax return either because they don't tax their citizens who are not residents, or they don't tax dividends (eg. South Africa), or their dividend tax is lower than the US tax. So first, do you have to file 1040 or can you elect to? Second, once you make an election to file 1040, can you revoke that election?

I would suggest that, once you are a resident, the filing options is fairly clear. Otherwise, you'd get US citizens attempting to file

But being a resident means green card. Does having a visa that allows you to file as a resident means that you have to?