Free Tax Assistance
Our mission is to provide tax services and tax education to those who are or were nonresident aliens. Generally, this means individuals that are present in the U.S. on an F, J, M, or Q visa who are nonresident aliens, as well as individuals who are U.S. tax residents, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
To do this we operate an IRS VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) tax clinic that provides free tax services. We provide free access to tax software, tools, guides, and assistance by IRS trained and certified volunteers. You can use our free tax software to prepare your resident or nonresident federal and state income tax returns online, and e-file them.
We grant free, no cost membership to individuals who:
Have an school, non-profit, or government organization 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.
Membership Options
At NoRTH we provide free access to tax software, tools, and individual support to individuals with a school, nonprofit, or government email address.
We also partner with schools and organizations to provide dedicated memberships. This allows us to customize your membership pages with information specific to your organization, such as how to find your W-2 or student account information, state-specific tax information, or to point you to local resources. If your email belongs to one of these organizations, click on that link to get a membership. If your organization is not listed separately, please select a NoRTH membership.
For anyone with a school, nonprofit, or government email address:
Partner Membership Links:
Notes:
You must use your organization email account for all membership requests. General email accounts (gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.) are not allowed.
You only get one membership (having multiple doesn’t get you anything more). Membership requests are automatically approved, but we do review membership sign-ups, and reserve the right to modify your membership to match your email, or delete it if you don’t use a qualifying email address.
Free Tax Tools
Here are a couple of useful tools to help you get started on your taxes. These tools are
Use this tool to determine your federal tax residency status.
Use this tool to determine your treaty benefits, and if your tax documents match your benefits
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: taxhelp@nrtaxhelp.org. If you have out of scope income or a situation you can still use the free software 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.
Some state income tax returns. We support MN, CA, PA, MD, WI, OH, and NC 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)
Income earned outside of the U.S.
Amended returns
Prior year (2022 or earlier) returns
Cryptocurrency