How to Renew Your ITIN in Canada Quickly Before Filing Your U.S. Taxes

The Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice (“IRS”) has announced that it would start accept­ing U.S. tax indi­vid­ual tax returns on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 27, 2020. This offi­cial­ly start­ed the 2020 tax sea­son. The Indi­vid­ual Tax­pay­er Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Num­ber (“ITIN”) is a unique tax­pay­er iden­ti­fi­er that allows non‑U.S. res­i­dent indi­vid­u­als to file their fed­er­al tax­es. ITIN is intend­ed for cer­tain U.S. res­i­dents and non­res­i­dents, their spous­es and depen­dents who have tax fil­ing oblig­a­tions in the Unit­ed States and who are not eli­gi­ble to apply for a Social Secu­ri­ty Num­ber (SSN). You can either have an ITIN or an SSN, but not both at the same time. Your ITIN is a 9‑digit num­ber that will look some­thing like this: 9XX-83-XXXX. ITINs are dif­fer­ent from SSNs in that they do not autho­rize the tax­pay­er to do work in the Unit­ed States, but key for one’s abil­i­ty to file U.S. tax returns or applic­a­ble claims with the IRS. If your ITIN has expired in 2019, it is impor­tant to renew your ITIN before fil­ing your U.S. tax return in 2020. To renew your ITIN, you will need to file with the IRS ITIN Oper­a­tion prop­er­ly com­plet­ed Form W‑7 (ITIN renew­al appli­ca­tion), along with a cer­ti­fied copy of your pass­port or two oth­er gov­ern­ment issued doc­u­ments based on spe­cif­ic IRS require­ments. We’ve out­lined the process below.

Who needs to have an ITIN? 

You need to have an ITIN if you meet one or more of the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria (this list is non-exhaus­tive and you should con­tact a qual­i­fied U.S. tax advi­sor to review your par­tic­u­lar facts):  

• You are inel­i­gi­ble for an SSN, but are required to file a U.S. tax return or need ITIN for oth­er pur­pos­es (note that if you have a valid U.S. work visa (TN, L1, E2, and oth­er U.S. work visa types), you are eli­gi­ble for SSN, and if you apply for ITIN, the IRS is like­ly to reject your ITIN appli­ca­tion).

 

• You are required to file a fed­er­al tax return, whether you owe any tax­es or are claim­ing a refund for any over­paid or over­with­held tax­es (note that this equal­ly applies to U.S. res­i­dent alien indi­vid­u­als and non­res­i­dent alien indi­vid­u­als). For exam­ple, as a Cana­di­an indi­vid­ual, you may have sold your U.S. real prop­er­ty in Flori­da in 2019 and due to For­eign Invest­ment in Real Prop­er­ty Tax Act (“FIRPTA”) with­hold­ing, 15 per­cent of the gross sales pro­ceeds has been with­held on the clos­ing date. The amount of FIRPTA with­hold­ing is usu­al­ly sub­stan­tial­ly high­er than the amount of the taxpayer’s ulti­mate tax lia­bil­i­ty. As a result, your 2019 tax return would like­ly show a refund for the tax­es over­with­held. In the absence of ITIN, the IRS would not accept your U.S. tax return and refund claim. (To reduce or elim­i­nate your FIRPTA with­hold­ing on the clos­ing date, you may be able to apply for IRS With­hold­ing Cer­tifi­cate. Please vis­it this link where we describe the process and sched­ule an ini­tial con­sul­ta­tion if you are inter­est­ed in work­ing with us. Please make sure to do so before the clos­ing date and give your­selves enough time to com­plete all required fil­ings).

 

• The U.S. with­hold­ing agent (pay­ee) has request­ed an ITIN to release a pay­ment to you. This could hap­pen, for exam­ple, if you are a part­ner in a part­ner­ship and the part­ner­ship is mak­ing a dis­tri­b­u­tion to you or if you have an inter­est-bear­ing bank account and the bank requires ITIN to com­ply with applic­a­ble tax and with­hold­ing report­ing require­ments.

 

• You are a spouse or depen­dent of a non­res­i­dent alien indi­vid­ual with a valid U.S. visa who is required to file a U.S. tax return and may be able to claim you as depen­dents on their tax return.

 

• You are a spouse or depen­dent of a U.S. cit­i­zen or res­i­dent alien who is required to file a U.S. tax return and may be able to claim you as depen­dents on their tax return.

 

• You are a non­res­i­dent alien who wants to claim treaty ben­e­fits. For exam­ple, you have a 401(K) plan and the plan admin­is­tra­tor request­ed an ITIN so that you can claim a reduced with­hold­ing tax rate.

 

• You are a non­res­i­dent alien stu­dent, pro­fes­sor or researcher fil­ing a U.S. income tax return or claim­ing an exemp­tion.

 

• You have been asked to pro­vide ITIN for any oth­er pur­pos­es that may include receiv­ing U.S. source income, being sub­ject to U.S. tax with­hold­ing on pas­sive income, and oth­er cir­cum­stances.

 

• You have a deceased tax­pay­er on whose behalf you need to claim a refund or file a U.S. tax return. Indeed, ITIN can be obtained for a deceased indi­vid­ual, but there are spe­cif­ic require­ments to fol­low.

  All of these rea­sons seem to be sim­ple, but more often than not “the dev­il is in detail.” Each rea­son for apply­ing for ITIN requires spe­cif­ic sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion with­out which the IRS would reject your Form W‑7 sub­mis­sion. This usu­al­ly leads to delays and fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions. ITIN renew­al appli­ca­tions do not require sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, oth­er than iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments list­ed lat­er in this arti­cle. Even then, there are sit­u­a­tions when the IRS ITIN Oper­a­tion requires sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion to renew ITIN. The eas­i­est and most straight­for­ward way to obtain an ITIN is to file a U.S. tax return along with your ITIN appli­ca­tion. Pro­vid­ed that you have cor­rect­ly com­plet­ed Form W‑7 and pro­vid­ed proof of iden­ti­ty and for­eign sta­tus, as required by the IRS, you should not expe­ri­ence unnec­es­sary delays and rejec­tion by the IRS. As an IRS Cer­ti­fied Accep­tance Agent, we can save your time by cer­ti­fy­ing your orig­i­nal doc­u­ments, with­out send­ing the orig­i­nals to the IRS. If you are not sure if you require an ITIN, or if you are eli­gi­ble for one, check out some key facts at our ITIN Ser­vice Cen­ter.

How do I get an ITIN in Canada?

To apply for your ITIN in Cana­da, you will have to fill out Form W‑7 and pro­vide proof of res­i­dence in Cana­da. The IRS has stip­u­lat­ed a list of 13 accept­able doc­u­ments as proof of iden­ti­ty and for­eign sta­tus to acquire an ITIN. These doc­u­ments include;

1. Pass­port (the only stand­alone doc­u­ment);
2. Nation­al Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Card;
3. U.S. dri­ver’s license;
4. Civ­il birth cer­tifi­cate (manda­to­ry for depen­dents under 18 years old);
5. For­eign driver’s license;
6. U.S. state iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card;
7. U.S. mil­i­tary iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card;
8. For­eign voter’s reg­is­tra­tion card;
9. For­eign mil­i­tary iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card;
10. Visa;
11. U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices (USCIS) pho­to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion;
12. Med­ical records (for depen­dents under age 6 only);
13. School records (for depen­dents only — under age 14, under age 18, if a stu­dent).

  Bear in mind that:

• The doc­u­ment must be cur­rent and show an expi­ra­tion date. The IRS only accepts the doc­u­ment if it was issued no more than 12 months of the appli­ca­tion (if the expi­ra­tion date isn’t avail­able).

 

• Your name, pho­to­graph and claim of for­eign sta­tus must be sup­port­ed in the doc­u­ment. Cana­di­ans usu­al­ly pro­vide their Cana­di­an pass­port when apply­ing for the ITIN.

 

• The IRS only accepts copies that are cer­ti­fied by the agency that issued the doc­u­ment. Nota­rized copies by a lawyer will not suf­fice. In addi­tion, the IRS accepts pass­port or birth cer­tifi­cate copy cer­ti­fied by a Cer­ti­fy­ing Accep­tance Agent (CAA).

  In Cana­da, you can get your pass­port cer­ti­fied with the Cana­da Pass­port office. This way, you do not have to mail your orig­i­nal pass­port to the IRS and like­ly would save some mon­ey. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can work with a CAA, which may be espe­cial­ly advis­able if you are not sure how to go about the process and what sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion you need to pro­vide. If you are in the Unit­ed States or are will­ing to make a trip, you can vis­it the IRS Tax­pay­er Assis­tance Cen­ter (“TAC”) where an IRS agent would review your ITIN appli­ca­tion, iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments and oth­er sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion and accept the ITIN appli­ca­tion, with­out retain­ing your orig­i­nal pass­port. This process would not cost you any­thing and all you need to do is to sched­ule an appoint­ment (note that a walk-in is avail­able in some loca­tions also).  

What ITIN numbers will expire in 2020?

ITINs not used in the most recent three-year peri­od expired on Decem­ber 31, 2019. ITINs with the mid­dle dig­its “83” through “87” (issued before 2013) also expired on that date. If the mid­dle dig­its of your ITIN are “70” through “82”, your ITIN has already expired, unless you renewed it before. Make sure you dou­ble-check this infor­ma­tion before fil­ing your tax returns in 2020.  

How long does it take for an ITIN renewal?

Your ITIN appli­ca­tion could take up to 11 weeks (on aver­age, in our expe­ri­ence, the process takes any­where from 3 to 6 weeks, when applied through a CAA) to process and this fluc­tu­ates based on the vol­ume of appli­ca­tions the IRS receives. Bear in mind that this does not include the time you will need to gath­er the required sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion. Renew your ITIN as soon as pos­si­ble so that you don’t encounter any pro­cess­ing or refund delays when it comes time to file your tax­es.  

How can I check my ITIN status?

The IRS advis­es that you wait at least 10 weeks before expect­ing a change in your ITIN appli­ca­tion sta­tus. In most cas­es, you will receive a response between six to eight weeks. You could speak to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to check the sta­tus of your ITIN appli­ca­tion. Call the IRS at; - 800–829-1040 (toll-free) — for peo­ple in the U.S. - 267–941-1000 - for peo­ple out­side the U.S.  If you filed your ITIN appli­ca­tion through a CAA, the CAA can check on the sta­tus of your appli­ca­tion using a spe­cial chan­nel avail­able to CAAs. Make sure you have all the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion on hand as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive can request any vital data from your appli­ca­tion.  

Renew Your ITIN ASAP and Avoid Processing Delays!

U.S. Tax IQ is a team of expe­ri­enced tax attor­neys and CPAs with the knowl­edge to guide you through com­plex U.S. tax law. Our goal is to make the tax report­ing pro­ce­dure as smooth and has­sle-free as pos­si­ble for you. We advise on U.S. tax and cross-bor­der tax issues.  If you need help with your ITIN, as a CAA, we will be hap­py to assist you with the process. If you would like to work with us on apply­ing for / renew­ing your ITIN, please vis­it our ITIN Ser­vice Cen­ter page and review all rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion before you book an appoint­ment. Once you have sched­uled the appoint­ment, we will send you a link to an online ITIN Ques­tion­naire that you will be required to fill out pri­or to the meet­ing. You will also be required to upload your pass­port copy so that we can pre­pare all nec­es­sary doc­u­ments for your vis­it. If you have already com­plet­ed Form W‑7, we will need to redo it. How­ev­er, you can upload it when com­plet­ing the ITIN Ques­tion­naire along with a copy of your pass­port pic­ture page and any applic­a­ble U.S. visa stamps. All infor­ma­tion is being upload secure­ly using the high­est secu­ri­ty stan­dards