1. REMINDER: Planned Computer Center Outage December 26-27
2. No International Coffee Hour in January
3. Attention Income Tax Filers: Non-Resident Tax Forms Cannot be Filed Electronically

1. REMINDER: Planned Computer Center Power Outage December 26-27

The Computer Center has announced a computing power outage for Wednesday and Thursday, December 26 and 27 while an emergency power generator is installed. This means that central computer and campus network resources will not be available during this time.

Desktop and laboratory computers operating as stand-alone devices outside the Computer Center will not be affected. The services that will be unavailable include:

1. The entire campus wired and wireless networks.
2. Electronic mail will be down, as will email forwarding to external mail servers.
3. Blackboard.
4. All Binghamton administrative applications (Oracle HR and Finance, Banner and CICS applications).
5. Pharos print system in Pods and Information Commons.
6. Software that requires access to a license manager (Matlab, ANSYS, Fluent, Solid Edge).
7. Kronos and the Card Access System.
8. Library on-line bibliographic resources.
9. Shared network storage devices (aka "H" drive or "S" drive).

Anyone attempting to connect to the binghamton.edu web server will be redirected to the backup server at Broome Community College that will contain a message explaining the situation. E-mail sent to binghamton.edu mail addresses will normally be held by the sending server. Users who anticipate critical email communications during this time should warn correspondents of the outage and may want to have alternate e-mail services for this period. When the BU servers are once again up, there is likely to be an extraordinary amount of mail that will have to be processed. Expect some initial delays.

2. No International Coffee Hour in January

There will be no International Coffee Hour in January. Instead, the regular international coffee hour schedule will resume Friday, February 1, 2008 at 3:30pm in the Old Union Hall. Watch for the announcement in an upcoming edition of ISSS-BU News.

3. Attention Income Tax Filers: Non-Resident Tax Forms Cannot be Filed Electronically

Many students who visit the websites of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the New York State Tax Department find announcements that encourage tax filers to use e-filing to submit their income tax forms electronically to these two agencies. The Office of International Student and Scholar Services reminds students that if you are a non-resident for tax purposes, you cannot file electronically, but must file paper forms.

Who is considered to be a non-resident for tax purposes? International students in F or J status for 5 years or less (since 2003 or later) and their F-2 or J-2 dependents, file tax forms as non-residents. Research scholars or faculty in J-1 status for 2 years or less (since 2006 or later) also file as non-residents. Non-residents file different tax forms than residents.

The ISSS provides access to free income tax compliance software, known as CINTAX, to all international students, international faculty and scholars, and international alumni who are eligible to be considered as non-residents for tax purposes. CINTAX provides an easy to use web interface for entering information regarding your income tax liability, and then enters the information onto the required forms so that you can print them. CINTAX is password-protected so that only you have access to the information. So, Do not attempt to complete your income tax forms using the e-filing options recommended by the Internal Revenue Service. It is not possible to e-file tax returns if you are a non-resident for tax purposes. Information about how to access and use CINTAX will be announced in late January.

 

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