IRS TIN Matching

The Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) Matching Program was established for payers of Form 1099 income subject to the backup withholding provisions of section 3406(a)(1)(A) and (B) of the Internal Revenue Code. Prior to filing an information return, a Program participant may check the TIN furnished by the payee against the name/TIN combination contained in the Internal Revenue Service database maintained for the Program.

The IRS Office of Electronic Tax Administration offers two TIN Matching options:

Interactive TIN Matching - This process accepts up to 25 input name/TIN combination requests online. Results are returned to the user in real time.

Bulk TIN Matching - This process accepts electronic transmittal files containing up to 100,000 name/TIN combinations for matching.

The Interactive and Bulk TIN Matching Programs are established under the authority of Revenue Procedure 2003-9. Revenue Procedure 2003-9 expands the IRS authority provided under Revenue Procedure 97-31, to allow the on-line matching of taxpayer identifying information as provided by payers of income reported on Forms 1099-B, DIV, INT, MISC, OID and PATR.

IRS e-Services is a suite of web-based products that will allow tax professionals and payers to conduct business with the IRS electronically. IRS e-Services include Interactive TIN Matching and Bulk TIN Matching. Only approved IRS business partners are eligible to participate in e-Services, so you will have to register.

•	If you are planning to use Account Ability's optional TIN Matching outsourcing service, you do not have to register for e-Services.

Account Ability creates BULKTIN transmittals pursuant to IRS Pub. 2108A. A single transmittal can contain name/TIN combinations for the entire family of information returns. Transmittal files are ultimately submitted to IRS e-Services or outsourced to Account Ability's optional TIN Matching service. In either case, the results are generally returned to you within 48 hours in the form of a response file, which Account Ability uses to print Forms W-9, First B-Notices, and/or W-9S.

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Transmittal files that contain duplicate TINs run the risk of being locked out of IRS e-Services for 96 hours. Consequently, Account Ability automatically filters duplicate TINs from each transmittal. TINs that have been filtered are automatically included in subsequent transmittals, provided you post the results of each response file you receive. Posting is discussed in the topic Response File Processing.

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Recipients who have not supplied a TIN are termed missing TIN recipients. You should make every effort to get a missing TIN recipient's taxpayer identification, else run the risk of an IRS penalty. To this end, Account Ability creates a Missing TIN Response File, which can be used to print W-9s for missing TIN recipients. For details, see the topic How to Create a Missing TIN Response File.