Forms SS-4 New Life

[Nashville]

All of a sudden various institutions are not accepting FEINs anymore. Instead, they want official letters from the IRS informing an entity of their FEIN assignment.

Apparently, the identity theft people have discovered just how easy it is to supply a fictitious FEIN number, so it no longer suffices just to use the FEIN number with an application.

First ran into this with a church who was renewing their loan. Only borrowing $140K with at least $500K collateral. Bank has financed for the church since the church was built, but now local bank in Smallville has been bought out by Megabank in Metropolis, and it's now time to renew the loan. Megabank will no longer accept the FEIN # even though it agrees with the one on current file. Church has had their FEIN since 1989, and no idea where their notification letter.

Today, a client has run into this with the U S Customs service, trying to buy something from overseas. Client was not able to find the notification letter, and was not even able to find anything from IRS with preprinted number! Client is no longer mailing out 941s, as these are now being done on-line.

Anyone else having this kind of trouble? Any suggestions?

[JohnH]

Wonder what would happen if the church sends a letter to IRS listing their FEIN and asks if this is the one they should be using? I assume IRS would respond, and even if the response says IRS can't give out that kind of info, the FEIN would probably still be listed in the upper right-hand corner of the letter.

[Jiggers]

SS-4 & EIN Letter

I ran into this with a Schedule C taxpayer who needed a copy of her SS-4 for something. I did find a copy of IRS correspondence regarding a 941 penalty from many years ago. This satisfied the request.

[Black Bart]

Federal Tax Deposit?

What about a coupon (form 8109) out of the book? Lots of older establishments have not converted to electronic tax deposits yet. This isn't the same as the notification letter, but that form looks pretty "official" with the number printed right square in the center of it.

I have original letters on some payroll tax customers, but not all. I hope this doesn't get too widespread -- I'll bet it would be very difficult to get a duplicate letter (or something like it) from IRS.

[Nashville]

Something from IRS

Bart, for the U S Customs office mentioned above, they finally ended up accepting an unused 941-V that was preprinted by the IRS, as they were told anything pre-printed from the IRS with the FEIN # would work.

Problem is, IRS has quit preprinting things like the 941, 1120-ES coupons, Forms 8109 except for the smallest taxpayers. The 941-V mentioned above was from 2005.

If these institutions try to make this stick, commerce is going to grind to a halt.

[ED SMITH]

You should be able to call the PPL and get an Account Transcript that will have the EIN.

[ChEAr$]

Also

call PPL and they will send a letter confirming the number without having to manufacture a
transcript of any taxes.