IRS to Require Manual Entry of Tax ID Numbers

The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday that for tax year 2011, it would require the manual key entry of the Taxpayer Identification Number shown on W-2 forms received from employers for all taxpayers with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers who are reporting wages.

The IRS warned that no software package should provide an auto-population feature, regardless of the presence of an override feature, to populate the TIN on the Form W-2 for ITIN filers.

Failure to comply with the requirement could result in a written reprimand, suspension or expulsion from the e-file program, the IRS noted, citing Revenue Procedure 2007-40.

The IRS has been cracking down on all forms of taxpayer and tax preparer fraud, in some cases using identification numbers to trace incidents of errors and omissions.

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