IRS To Honor Medical Resident FICA Refund Claims

IR-2010-25, March 2, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has made an administrative determination to accept the position that medical residents are excepted from FICA taxes based on the student exception for tax periods ending before April 1, 2005, when new IRS regulations went into effect.

The IRS will, within 90 days, begin contacting hospitals, universities and medical residents who filed FICA (Social Security and Medicare tax) refund claims for these periods with more information and procedures. Employers and individuals with pending claims do not need to take any action at this time.

For more information, call 1-800-919-1703 or visit www.irs.gov/charities and click on Medical Resident FICA Refund Claims. Taxpayers with currently pending suits should contact the Department of Justice attorney assigned to the case.

No word on claims arising AFTER the new rules were imposed.

Zip Code: 43085

Does anyone know if Fellows are treated the same as Residents for FICA Refund purposes?

Zip Code: 11797

University of rochester is processing the refund for both residents and fellows.

However, when i called my residency program at OSU, they told me that OSU did not file the refund in 2005, so we are not eligible. Is there anything we can do? Thanks.

Ben Liu

Zip Code: 14534

Hi,

I think the IRS issued a specific rules early in 2005 stating that medical residents and fellows were subject to FICA taxes from that day forward. That's why your program did not file a FICA refund claim for 2005.

Who knows if this IRS ruling will stand up in court?

And unfortunately, at this point in time, if your program didn't file a claim for 2005, and you didn't file an individual claim, then it might be too late to file anything with the IRS to get your FICA taxes from 2005 refunded.

Zip Code: 01801