Stipends and Salaries

Compensation for services (whether a speaker's honorarium, research associate's salary, or graduate student's stipend) is subject to taxation as income in the United States. The Social Security Administration issues identification numbers to all people who expect to receive income for services or interest or dividends on investments. If you know you will be coming to the United States and will be compensated for services, and you do not already have a U.S. Social Security number, you may apply for a number prior to your arrival. Having a Social Security number before you arrive expedites and simplifies all payments due you from United States sources. One caveat, however, a word from the Social Security Administration is that when an application is filed outside the United States, the time frame to receive the card is between 3 and 6 months, as opposed to 14 days if filed in the United States. In either case, you need to take your appropriate papers and appear in person to file your application for Social Security number. Thus, you may take your papers to your local U.S. Embassy six months prior to coming here, which allows you to use transportation with which you are familiar and eliminates the need to bring documents such as your birth certificate here with you. OR, you may visit our local Social Security Office in Littleton, NH, which is about an hour's drive north of Hanover. For people who do not drive or have access to a car, getting to Littleton will require renting a car or asking someone in your lab to drive you there, since there is no public transportation between Hanover and Littleton.

Employees and students who do not already have a Social Security number will be issued a temporary number upon arrival at Dartmouth to be used until they have received a permanent one.

Payments to international visitors for short-term activity, such as presenting a seminar, are subject to a 30% withholding for taxes unless they have a permanent Social Security number. Once a number has been issued, it should be used for all subsequent income received from services rendered in the United States.

The United States Internal Revenue Service has placed publications on line for viewing by international visitors to help you understand how our system of taxation affects you while you are working or studying at Dartmouth:

Publication 513, Tax Information for Visitors to the United States

Publication 515, Withholding of Tax on Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Corporations

Publication 519, U.S. Tax Guide for Aliens

Before you can be issued a stipend or salary check, you must first visit the Dartmouth College Payroll Office with passport and visa in hand to discuss your tax status. Whether there is a tax treaty in effect between the United States and your home country will determine how much stipend or salary, if any, is exempt from taxation in the U.S.