How this UK author got her ITIN

Thanks for this guide. I'm toying with the idea of going the Amazon route with something and have been agonizing over this. The only problem is, even though I am a born and bred Englishman, I have never had a passport. Do they accept other forms of ID?

pdblake said:

Thanks for this guide. I'm toying with the idea of going the Amazon route with something and have been agonizing over this. The only problem is, even though I am a born and bred Englishman, I have never had a passport. Do they accept other forms of ID?

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Yes. I used my driving licence and my birth certificate. You're having to prove nationality and residency, which is why the passport is the usual one as it covers both of those in one. Without a passport you'll usually need the two items.

Always worth applying for a passport anyway... they are the most useful form of ID for most things (especially, given the way politics are going at the moment, you may need a passport to get into Scotland...)

I have a provisional driver's licence. Has a picture of my ugly mug on it anyway

Well, just want to say thanks to Scarlet for the advice on here (though I also got some advice on this from other sources too, including a Canadian author's blog which my publisher pointed me to because she was an author who was with them). I just sent my form and passport off with my acceptance letter and been told that it should arrive in London and be signed for by 1pm tomorrow. I do feel slightly nervous about trusting my passport to the postal system but at least I know I can claim the money needed to get a new one if they lose it...

Any idea how long it takes the embassy to send passports back once they have processed them and sent it all on to the states?

I panicked slightly when I read the bit about putting the date in American format... I'd forgotten to do that on my birth date. But then I remembered, my birth month and date are the same number so it makes little difference

Oh and one piece of advice from the Canadian blog which I have not seen here yet - apparently you need to fill every box with something even if not relevant. Putting N/A in there for example. The claim is that they sometimes love to be picky about blank spaces on forms and have sent them back in the past for that reason.

aaargh -- the IRS REJECTED my ITIN application. Reason: I didn't provide an exception number or correct information in check box (h). This is correct. This is the place where your "treaty article number" -- SP has hers as 12 for the UK but I have no idea what the nu,ber for Germany is and it seems to be nowhere on the website or on the web. How does one find out thsese things???? Anyway I wrote my agent's assistant - I guess they can help me out.

Now they want me to reapply and it seems they want the whole passport stuff again. Even though they returned my ID card last week, and so they already know I am bone fide; and since they want the rejection letter with reference number, it may be that I don't go to the back of the queue again.

But -- what a hassle!!! I hate filling out forms and today I have THREE of them to fill out. Blast.

You need to look in the actual treaty which is a pdf article on the website. There is a list of the countries and what treaty number they are...

And yes, I also have to resubmit everything because they didn't like the letter the publisher provided. I wonder if they are being deliberately awkward at the moment for some reason?

Thank you so much for posting about this - it's exactly the kind of paperwork that makes my brain explode.

Latin verbs? Absobloomin'lutely. Taxes, forms and numbers? Goes for a little lie down in a dark room...

areteus said:

You need to look in the actual treaty which is a pdf article on the website. There is a list of the countries and what treaty number they are...

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I went through the whole treaty (before posting the last post) and couldn't find it, and on this list it doesn't say: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/international/article/0,,id=96739,00.html

Is there another list somewhere?

And yes, I do think they make it very awkward for us furriners. I mean, why is it so hard to find something so essential they can reject your application for it?

But thanks!

There was a blog post I followed which went through the whole thing step by step (and made sure to remind you where to put NA and where to find info. I'll see if I can find a link and post it here for you.

I suppose the easy answer is simply to call the Embassy in Frankfurt and ask -- but I just can't believe they expect everyone who applies to do that or to intuitively know -- so it must be there somewhere. It's probably incredibly obvious and I am just being obtuse.
But, thanks areteus. And thanks SP -- for the initial guidance.

OK, I think I have been a dummie. Reading another site (one for students) I realised that you have to go through the treaty itself and look for the article relating to royalties. In the German treaty this would be Article 12 (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/germany.pdf).
I was thinking that every country had a number assigned to it....
Please tell me I am right!

I think you are...

This is what I was sent to help me:

On the W-7:
http://angelasstone.livejournal.com/13770.html On the W-BEN:
http://angelasstone.livejournal.com/15902.html

Basically these are the blog of a Canadian writer who documented what she did to get the ITIN and she makes a lot of good points about nit picking - such as why you have to put NA in boxes rather than leaving them blank (cos they will reject on that basis).

And it is tax law. It is designed to be complicated and inexplicable to normal humans

Oh, that does spell it out nicely! And I am right about it being Article 12. The rejection letter tells me it's the "exception number" they want, but on the actual form it says "treaty article number".
Call me Nincompoop. But I do think they should provide a Help Page for Nincompoops!
Maybe my experience will help others.

Update:
They do, somewhere on that site, provide a Help page.
I ended up calling the tax office in the US to ask if they needed a new agent's letter. they didn't; they did however require a new ID. They did not accept my ID card, which they actually had in the original, and which is identical to my passport and just as valid in the EU. I wasn't going to send my passport to the USA, so I got a notarised copy. With an apostille. You can get those from any public notary in the UK; the one I used a few months ago cost £5. The one I got yesterday, in Germany, cost EUR 11.

(Incidentally, I had to take the notarised copy to the County Court to get it legitimised and get the apostille; it happened to be in the very same building that was once my employer, the very same room in which I met my husband in 1983, the very same employees who recognised us at once and had a nice chat with us. (The Bezirksrevisor, Herr Stark; he used to check our accounts, and as I am not good at bookkeeping, I used to live in quaking fear of him. Turns out to be a really nice, friendly man who remembered my maiden name and lots of stuff I had forgotten. So it was a nice trip down memory lane!)


Anyway, for the future I would advise anyone needing an ITIN to send a notarised copy rather than the original; the price is about the same as for recorded mail and it's probably quicker than going to the Embassy yourself. IMO.

You don't send your passport or any ID to the states. It goes to your local embassey and they copy it and notarise the copy and send it on with your application and return your passport. I got mine back in 2 days.

They need proof of ID and proof of citizenship in your home country. They only accept a passport as proof of both of these (so you can send one passport to fulfull all requirements or send several pieces of ID to cover it)

Yes, but because mine was a rejection I had to send it back to them directly, with the letter they had sent me -- it had a reference number so I'm assuming it will jump the queue. The letter told me to send it to the US tax office directly.

But even with the first application, it makes sense to send a notarised copy to the embassy rather than the real passport.

I did send my ID to the embassy when I first applied; I thought they would copy and notarise it and send it back, but they didn't. They sent it to the USA, and it took about six weeks to get it back! That's why I urge caution in sending your original documents, depending on which country you are applying from.

In Germany, and in the EU, my identity card is exactly the same as a passport. I use it for travel between EU states etc. Seems thought the US does not recognise it as such.

No, they don't recognise it. The guidelines say that only a passport will do for ID and Citizenship. Your ID card will do ID but you also need a Birth Certificate or similar to prove citizenship... passport does both. You could find a notary to stamp a copy for you if that makes it easier?

I was told to do the process again the same way as I did it the first time - i.e. through the embassey - after my rejection. Not sure why you have been told to go direct to the office in the US...

areteus said:

. You could find a notary to stamp a copy for you if that makes it easier?
.

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I needed not just the notary's stamp but the apostille! In the Uk this is done by the notary; in Germany the latter was done by the court.

Argh, so annoyed! Just got my IRS form returned, saying that it got rejected because "the supporting documents don't support the exception to filing a US tax return that you claimed." That's so vague, can't they just say specifically what they want? I sent my passport to the US embassy in London, who sent off a copy of it to the IRS. I also sent off the printed out copy of the letter amazon provides on their website.

What else am I missing? Does anyone know?
Thanks!

Ring your local embassey and get them to tell you the exact reasons. The 'supporting documents' and 'passport is the only proof of citizenship' comments on the letter they send are not specific to your case - they are on every rejected letter regardless of the reason for it. This is what happened to me. When I rang the embassy (when I eventually got through - tip, if it is the London one ring on one of the days they are open all day not the days they are open half the day, you never seem to get through on those days even during the opening times....) they told me the reasons and gave some advice on what was needed (which I am still working on, the publisher is researching the necessary changes they need to make to the letter).

I think that someone in the Texas office has tightened up the adherence to the regulations. Publishers are sending letters which worked when used in the past because of laxer rules but are now being rejected. The one that seems to have got me was that they wanted specific dates mentioned in the letter (i.e. stating that I would be paid royalties in the tax year starting April [insert year]) rather than, as mine said, 'in the current tax year' with reference to the date on the letter.

Here is another UK author's tale of getting her ITIN, but she is self-published through Smashwords and Amazon:

How I Got My ITIN

She notes it's a good idea to personally go to the IRS office in the US Embassy in London, where they will make a copy of your passport for you.

If you post your passport to the embassy they will also make a copy and send it back to you in a couple of days using registered post (you should also send it registered post - you get insurance to cover a replacement). It works out a lot cheaper for those who don't live in London (£5 to send it as opposed to a lot more than that in train fares or petrol + parking in London...)