Do I have to pay social security or medicare taxes while on CPT?
If you are an F-1 student and have not been in the US for 5 years you should not be paying Social Security or Medicare Taxes. Your employer should refer to IRS Publication 519 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p519.pdf. They should in particular read page 6 for “exempt individuals” and page 45-46 (in Chapter 8). After reading that they will want to know what is the difference between a Resident Alien and Non-Resident Alien and how to calculate this. This can also be found in Publication 519 on Page 4-5 with the standard Substantial Presence Test, but should also look on page 6 for exempt individuals where they will find F’s stated clearly and the five year rule.
