Is Your ITIN Expiring? Here’s Why You Should Renew It Today!

Atten­tion tax­pay­ers, here’s why you should renew your expir­ing ITIN pri­or to fil­ing tax returns in 2020.

Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN)

The ITIN is a U.S. tax pro­cess­ing num­ber used to file a U.S. tax return with the IRS, if required and is avail­able to cer­tain non­res­i­dent and res­i­dent indi­vid­u­als, their spous­es and depen­dents who do not meet the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria for a Social Secu­ri­ty Num­ber (SSN). You are not per­mit­ted to have an SSN and an active ITIN simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. The ITIN has 9 dig­its that come in the fol­low­ing form; XXX-XX-XXXX. Unlike an SSN, ITINs are giv­en regard­less of U.S. immi­gra­tion sta­tus, as non-res­i­dent and res­i­dent aliens may have U.S. report­ing or fil­ing require­ments under the Inter­nal Rev­enue Code (IRC).

What doesn’t an ITIN do?

The ITIN is used sole­ly for fed­er­al tax report­ing pur­pos­es. It does not per­mit a per­son to work in the Unit­ed States, does not pro­vide Social Secu­ri­ty ben­e­fits nor does it per­mit a depen­dent to qual­i­fy for the Earned Income Tax Cred­it.

Who needs to have an ITIN?

• The fol­low­ing is a brief list of rea­sons why you might require an ITIN:
• You do not pos­sess a SSN nor do you meet the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria to get one; or
• You must sub­mit a U.S. fed­er­al income tax return and are required to pro­vide a fed­er­al tax ID num­ber for that pur­pose; and
• You fall under one of these sub­cat­e­gories;
  • U.S. res­i­dent alien who is required to file a U.S. income tax return;
  • Spouse or depen­dent of a non­res­i­dent indi­vid­ual who holds a U.S. visa;
  • Spouse or depen­dent of an U.S. cit­i­zen or res­i­dent alien;
  • Non­res­i­dent alien claim­ing a tax treaty ben­e­fit; or
  • Non­res­i­dent alien stu­dent, pro­fes­sor or researcher fil­ing a U.S. income tax return or claim­ing an exemp­tion.

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 will I know if my ITIN is due to expire?

The IRS has indi­cat­ed that all ITINs not used on a U.S. fed­er­al income tax return at least once in the last three years will expire on Decem­ber 31, 2019. More­over, ITINs with mid­dle num­bers 83, 84, 85, 86 or 87 (pro­vid­ed before 2013) will also expire on that same date.

When don’t I need to renew my ITIN?

If the ITIN:

• doesn’t have the mid­dle num­bers 83 to 87;
• is used only on cer­tain infor­ma­tion returns, such as the Form 1099 series of forms;
• is used by an indi­vid­ual who has been issued a SSN; or
• is expir­ing and the indi­vid­ual does not expect to have a tax return fil­ing require­ment.

Since per­son­al exemp­tions have been sus­pend­ed for the 2018–2025 tax years, as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, depen­dents resid­ing out­side the Unit­ed States won’t need to renew their expir­ing ITIN.

Why should I renew my ITIN?

With near­ly 2 mil­lion ITINs expir­ing this year, you should dou­ble check to ensure that your ITIN does not fall into this cat­e­go­ry. If you fail to renew it, you might encounter frus­trat­ing refund pro­cess­ing delays or poten­tial penal­ties when you file your income tax return next year. If you file your returns using an invalid ITIN, the IRS records will indi­cate that your return was filed on time, how­ev­er, you can­not uti­lize cer­tain exemp­tions or cred­its.

How do I renew my ITIN?

The IRS has already begun issu­ing notices to those tax­pay­ers whose ITINs are expir­ing. As per the CP48 Notice; Com­plete and sub­mit Form W 7 to the address men­tioned in Form W 7 instruc­tion man­u­al, along with the request­ed sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion. Here’s how to go about doing that;

• Include orig­i­nal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments or a cer­ti­fied copy from the orig­i­nal issu­ing agency.
• Select the “Renew ITIN” box at the top right-hand cor­ner of the form.
• Choose the rea­son you are sub­mit­ting the ITIN appli­ca­tion as stat­ed in the instruc­tion man­u­al.
• In the des­ig­nat­ed area (lines 6e‑f), include your ITIN and the name under which it was issued.

You do not need to pro­vide a tax return when you send in the renew­al request. For ITINs that are already invalid, you can still renew in time for next year’s tax sea­son. U.S. Tax IQ’s advi­sors have over 40 years of expe­ri­ence and make the tax report­ing pro­ce­dure pain­less. We advise on U.S. tax and cross-bor­der tax issues. If you need help with your ITIN, we are cer­ti­fied accep­tance agents assist­ing clients with their ITIN issues every day.  Con­tact us and we can put your tax affairs in order so that there are no has­sles down the line!