As a F-1 visa holder, you are
considered as "exempt" meaning not counting days for five years
starting from the date of your first arrival in the United States. After
the five years period, you will start counting days by using the Substantial Presence Test to see if you qualify to be
treated as a US resident for tax purposes.
In your situation, you are
considered as a nonresident from tax year 2012-2016 filing a Form 1040NR. Starting
from 01/01/2017, you will start counting your days. If you meet the
Substantial Presence Test in year of 2017, you will be considered a US resident for tax
purposes and file a Form 1040 for your tax year of 2017 which you will do in 2018. We are in the year of 2017, however, we are filing a tax year 2016 tax return. Since you were still considered as a nonresident last year (2016), you will be filing a Form 1040-NR on your 2016 tax return.
As TurboTax does not support Form
1040NR, we have a partnership with Sprintax who offers filing solution to
our TurboTax customers. See Visit the TurboTax/Sprintax site.
