5 ms·

I was a US person with an ITIN and have become a naturalized citizen. ITINs are very different to SSN. Honestly I've found the USA very easy to deal with compar

I was a US person with an ITIN and have become a naturalized citizen. ITINs are very different to SSN. Honestly I've found the USA very easy to deal with compared to the UK, France of South Africa where I've lived. The challenge with an ITIN is it blurs into immigration, visa status, whether you are violating visa terms, whether your ITIN - which you can get on a tourist visa - is an indication that you're trying to build a life here when you're just supposed to be a tourist, and so on. That doesn't even get into property ownership, or being a director or shareholder in a US corporation with an ITIN and various visa types.

ohgodplsno 5y ago
> Honestly I've found the USA very easy to deal with compared to the UK, France of South Africa where I've lived. ??? France as a foreigner: You arrive in the country, your employer already declares all taxes for you. While you may not have a tax ID to log in to impots.gouv.fr yet, everything is already registered in your name (because you gave either your SSN, or your visa number, or anything else). You send a letter to ask for a username/password to use to log in on the website, which arrives about two weeks later. Your taxes are collected monthly, and at the end of the year you pay the leftover/get paid what you overpaid. You can tell the state at any point how much you think you will earn, and it gets reevaluated. Your yearly tax filing is prefilled, and there's no need for any software. As an employer, the URSSAF website is, while hell to navigate, very clear in how much you owe. Give out your SIRET/SIREN, your tax report, and your taxes are done.
- sofixa 5y ago
  To be fair, there are some small hurdles - you get issued a temporary SSN quickly, but it might take some time and documents ( like an original of your birth certificate less than 6 months old in French, or translated in France by an authorised translator which is a retarded thing to ask for and for which I've had to explain many obvious things to many French officials - they simply do not have the right to ask for that, any EU country's translation is acceptable by law), but it's fine. You don't even need the regular SSN for taxes or healthcare, actually.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    Ah yes, the birth certificate thing is... impressive. Especially when it's being asked for someone coming from a country where you simply cannot update your birth certificate. France and inflexibility, especially in small mayor's offices are just standard. And yeah, the SSN isn't necessary. It is however usable for SSO through ameli.fr, for your taxes and many other services.
mdb31 5y ago
Sorry, I'm not blurring my ITIN with immigration status or whatever. I have not visited the US since 2004, I have no desire to return, and I have not done any business there since 2002. I just want an ITIN that is, like, actually in my name. Plus the IRS to agree that I do not owe any taxes in the 20-or-so ITINs that they have issued in various misspelled variations of my name. But yeah, to get any clarity, I apparently need to go to Austin, Texas, in 2020. And time machines are "easy to deal with", apparently?
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Sounds like there’s a lot more to your story than you’ve shared here.
  - mdb31 5y ago
    Thanks for the passive-aggressive accusation there! So, what more is there, exactly, to my story? My name is pretty simple, but, like many European names, has 3 parts, as well as some 'unexpected' letter combinations. As far as I know, you can only request an ITIN by phone. Possibly, this can also be done online now, but that wasn't the case in the 1999-2009 period that I'm talking about here. Also, the person that answers the phone... how do I say this? Is not exactly fluent in English... Or Spanish (which I can at least spell my name in as well)... Or any human language? So, you get a new ITIN, with a random ASCII string as a name. And, to file a valid tax form, your ITIN needs to match your name... Which you provide in a PDF. See where the problem lies here? You want me to upload a few scans of US government letters/forms with my actual name horribly misspellt? You want to see my attorney invoices? Certified PDFs only, I assume? What, exactly, is the burden of proof you place upon me here?
- ethbr0 5y ago
  As someone who uses his middle name, I've experienced only the tiniest bit of what you've gone through, but I can imagine your annoyance. It's amazing how massive systems often have no viable process for "As an end user, some of the data in the system is incorrect, and I would like to get it corrected." Once it's in the system via the setup process, it's there. And most people down the line working with it don't even know what system it's originally coming from. Edit: F.ex. if someone lied about their age when getting their Social Security # (this before issue-at-birth, so it had to be applied for in person), so as to be considered old enough to work, and then decades later wanted to set the record straight to avoid collecting benefits at too young an actual age, they would probably be told by a Social Security employee that doing so was more trouble than it was worth. ... Hypothetically speaking.

ohgodplsno 5y ago

> Honestly I've found the USA very easy to deal with compared to the UK, France of South Africa where I've lived. ??? France as a foreigner: You arrive in the country, your employer already declares all taxes for you. While you may not have a tax ID to log in to impots.gouv.fr yet, everything is already registered in your name (because you gave either your SSN, or your visa number, or anything else). You send a letter to ask for a username/password to use to log in on the website, which arrives about two weeks later. Your taxes are collected monthly, and at the end of the year you pay the leftover/get paid what you overpaid. You can tell the state at any point how much you think you will earn, and it gets reevaluated. Your yearly tax filing is prefilled, and there's no need for any software. As an employer, the URSSAF website is, while hell to navigate, very clear in how much you owe. Give out your SIRET/SIREN, your tax report, and your taxes are done.

sofixa 5y ago
To be fair, there are some small hurdles - you get issued a temporary SSN quickly, but it might take some time and documents ( like an original of your birth certificate less than 6 months old in French, or translated in France by an authorised translator which is a retarded thing to ask for and for which I've had to explain many obvious things to many French officials - they simply do not have the right to ask for that, any EU country's translation is acceptable by law), but it's fine. You don't even need the regular SSN for taxes or healthcare, actually.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  Ah yes, the birth certificate thing is... impressive. Especially when it's being asked for someone coming from a country where you simply cannot update your birth certificate. France and inflexibility, especially in small mayor's offices are just standard. And yeah, the SSN isn't necessary. It is however usable for SSO through ameli.fr, for your taxes and many other services.

mdb31 5y ago

Sorry, I'm not blurring my ITIN with immigration status or whatever. I have not visited the US since 2004, I have no desire to return, and I have not done any business there since 2002. I just want an ITIN that is, like, actually in my name. Plus the IRS to agree that I do not owe any taxes in the 20-or-so ITINs that they have issued in various misspelled variations of my name. But yeah, to get any clarity, I apparently need to go to Austin, Texas, in 2020. And time machines are "easy to deal with", apparently?

mmaunder 5y ago
Sounds like there’s a lot more to your story than you’ve shared here.
- mdb31 5y ago
  Thanks for the passive-aggressive accusation there! So, what more is there, exactly, to my story? My name is pretty simple, but, like many European names, has 3 parts, as well as some 'unexpected' letter combinations. As far as I know, you can only request an ITIN by phone. Possibly, this can also be done online now, but that wasn't the case in the 1999-2009 period that I'm talking about here. Also, the person that answers the phone... how do I say this? Is not exactly fluent in English... Or Spanish (which I can at least spell my name in as well)... Or any human language? So, you get a new ITIN, with a random ASCII string as a name. And, to file a valid tax form, your ITIN needs to match your name... Which you provide in a PDF. See where the problem lies here? You want me to upload a few scans of US government letters/forms with my actual name horribly misspellt? You want to see my attorney invoices? Certified PDFs only, I assume? What, exactly, is the burden of proof you place upon me here?
ethbr0 5y ago
As someone who uses his middle name, I've experienced only the tiniest bit of what you've gone through, but I can imagine your annoyance. It's amazing how massive systems often have no viable process for "As an end user, some of the data in the system is incorrect, and I would like to get it corrected." Once it's in the system via the setup process, it's there. And most people down the line working with it don't even know what system it's originally coming from. Edit: F.ex. if someone lied about their age when getting their Social Security # (this before issue-at-birth, so it had to be applied for in person), so as to be considered old enough to work, and then decades later wanted to set the record straight to avoid collecting benefits at too young an actual age, they would probably be told by a Social Security employee that doing so was more trouble than it was worth. ... Hypothetically speaking.