I am working in H1B at a consulting company. My Indian Friends are filing tax with an Indian. They tell me that filing itemized with that Indian gives them more than $1000 in refund than if filing online.

I have always filed through online either at H&R block or turbo tax. Should I file with that Indian tax filer or Online. What is your Opinion?

Hi Biruwa,

Biruwa: Your info is incomplete. 
Are you in H1B1 or Residence or F1 status? We can answer from here. You did not
know about Indian students can file tax as US Residence and can get more
refunds.

It
implies to Umesh too. I am guessing you have used 1040 and you have couple
children and you qualify for New Education credit which is up to 2500 dollars
and not completed 4 years college. If you were on F1 status, no way you will be
getting that much refund. It may mislead to them. They are hoping to get more refund
and can pay tuition.

UmeshJi:

Please do not give incomplete information speically those students thinking of paying their tuition if they get chunk of money as you mentioned.
If you filed as a foreign student, you would not be able to get that much monies. You must have filed  as US Resident, you qualify for new education credit which is up to 2500 dollars, Even with this qualification , to get 6600 refund , you must have over 4100 tax withheld or tax liability less than that. It means, you may have income less than 40000 dollars and you must have one or more children to qualify for Earn Income Credit as well you got child tax credit too.

Let me sum up:
You were or are under graduate student.
You Qualify for 1040 filing/ or used it.
You have spouse and children.
You qualify for EARN INCOME CREDIT ( income less than 44K).

Otherwise, there is no way you can get that chunk of money. What I am trying to say is do not just give them, just the dollar amount you have received, but under what circumstances you got that ( full info).
All F-1 students will be jealous about you, but do not know the facts.   Thanks.

Biruwa:

Disregard the previous comments. It may be harsh read, if I write, why not get a 1040 form and an instruction book from Library or a post office. It will take 3-5 hours to finish it and will give you an idea about tax. Then you will be asking yourself, why I asked this question.
In short: If you have a house, you pay Mortgage interest and Real estate tax and your withheld itself is higher than the standard deduction given to the tax payer according to their filing status. Please; Read the 1040 tax instruction first, it will be helpful for you future tax work.

Thanks for listening.

If i remember correctly; there was a thread like 2 months ago, where someone stated that Indians were given high income tax returns ( h1 or F1 filling income tax,),because there were some kind of treaty between India and US. And a Nepali national (h1 or F1) who was literally making same amount of money, as Indians, was getting less income tax return then his co-worker Indians.