-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Tue, 27 May 1997, Anonymous wrote:
I recently applied for a U.S. passport and, as an experiment, entered a SSN of 000-00-0000. The nice lady at the counter informed me that it would not be processed unless I provided a valid SSN (which gets forwarded to the IRS). It was my understanding that this disclosure was voluntary and that another form was available for notifying the IRS that a passport had been applied for.
My travel plans didn't allow me the luxury of delaying the application process, so I provided the damn number. Does anyone know the real rules for this situation? Must passports be cleared with the tax goons or do they just want to keep tabs on people travelling abroad?
I don't know the reason, but the IRS tax code requires that all passport applicants supply their SSNs to the IRS. The penalty for failing to notify is $500. I recently encountered this situation and just left the SSN blank. After explaining to the lady behind the counter that I was not required to give my SSN to the State Department, she eventually accepted the application without the SSN. I sent a letter to the IRS (address where tax returns are supposed to be sent) explainging the situation and included my SSN in the letter. I applied for the passport two months ago and have not been hassled by the IRS. A sample letter is at ftp.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/ssn/passport.ps. There's also more about this in the SSN FAQ. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBM4tLwCzIPc7jvyFpAQGI0wf/UVlRi69bn6maj0uF35+GxE6ejT0fhp9w NvpXaTSwF+SjXGfROshUYOChsc75axNHXDvhzWVIC+MooY5IzJv3rZ6lBjN73kO1 WGq17xwtoVvSaMOW2CFspbhGNpM18UK7CkCm5ugGUD2lUIMztO9u4NQPgHIHHetX XTIxKd/SoQUTMzAFybRyUAtg4EKlhGLotMNNU7/xNlkCaTlgXRKTg2BPnrykhhHI Sxn/NVhpWnYjF2eJpKAIsf6eU/ElhVkXiQ7C4mQFdMNTP8wijBlIib1qI7M3h0lq ji2UDBxPOhNSwkMjO1O1wxgRs6Lvj0+YDPyjoWPifLddUImZ1vmw+w== =TvQx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----