I changed from F-1 OPT to H-1B in the middle of the year. On what date should payroll stop using the student-style FICA treatment?
The confusing part is that nothing else about my job changed. Same employer, same desk, same work. The only thing that changed was the immigration status, but that sounds like exactly the kind of fact that payroll tax rules care about. I am trying to pin down whether the payroll treatment should switch on the legal status-change date or whether someone can keep the old F-1 logic going until year-end because the employment relationship never changed.
I want the file to be clean because I can already imagine how messy the year-end W-2 and refund questions will get if payroll floats between two assumptions. If the change date is the real dividing line, I would rather document it now and avoid treating the transition like a soft gray area.
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