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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 b

by 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.

by mdb31 5y ago

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.