08/12/2002
We have a customer changing an account to an irrevocable living trust, using her social security number as a TIN. I don't have anything that says that she is required to have a separate TIN. What are your thoughts?
07/15/2002
I am doing TIN Compliance at a bank in the Northern part of the U.S. and have come across an issue I could not resolve. We have customers that are Canadian Citizens. They have social security numbers and receive social security benefits. They say they don't pay taxes here. We have the accounts coded to suppress the 1099 and we issue a 1042S. I called the Internal Revenue Service to see if we are doing the reporting correctly and was told that even though the social security benefits were not taxable, any earned interest should be and they should be filing a US tax return. He also indicated that graduated tax rates are based on income and whether or not they are resident or nonresident aliens will play an important part in determining any tax liability. Is there a stated policy we should be enforcing with such customers? The IRS agent implied each case could be different and was unable to give me a definite answer. What documentation do we need in addition to the W8 Ben? Would putting their social security number on line 6 be sufficient? I just want to be sure we are reporting correctly and we have the needed documents. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
07/01/2002
We have a noninterest bearing account designed for "civic associations" e.g., girl scout troop #25; north metro soccer league, etc. Most of the time, the individual opening the account for this association wants to use their own social security number as the tax ID on the account as opposed to applying for a TIN in the name of the group. My CEO wants us to allow customers to do this so that it is "easy for the customer". These are "obviously incorrect" tax ID numbers in that the name of the account and the name of the individual do not match. Is this a problem?