Information Returns

Correcting Taxpayer Identification Is Possible Without Disclosing Tax Data Gao ID: GGD-90-90 June 5, 1990

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO determined what options exist, without a legislative change, to help financial institutions provide correct names and taxpayer identification numbers (TIN) to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

GAO found that: (1) while payors were not required to obtain correct names, there were many incorrect identification numbers listed due to name mismatches in IRS or social security files; (2) IRS should encourage payors to provide more information about payee name changes; (3) IRS could reduce the number of mismatches by expanding plans to correct names on income tax returns; and (4) IRS should tell payors when there is no current record of particular TIN in IRS or social security files.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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