What is a TIN Match and How Do Businesses Confirm If A TIN Is Valid?
When onboarding customers, vendors, partners, recruits, and other profiles, business entities use a prescribed set of identification methods to identify and verify the credibility of the incoming profiles. This practice helps the business understand if a person or an entity is really who they say they are. Collectively, this is called identity verification.
When a business wants to check if the incoming profile is in good standing with the IRS, a TIN match check is utilized to get the necessary insights into the profile’s tax history.
But why is TIN Match used during the customer identification process or KYC procedures? How important is TIN matching and how to check if the TIN is correct and valid?
The following will help you understand the most important things you need to know about TIN Matching.
Defining TIN Match
TIN Match is a process of validating the taxpayer identification number of an individual or entity against the IRS records to check if the TIN matches the official records.
Businesses obtain the taxpayer-identification numbers of their vendors through Form W-9 for processing non-employee compensations. Other business arrangements require the organizations to ask for the TIN/EIN/ITIN or social security number of the incoming profile along with the proof of identification.
The obtained taxpayer identification number is searched against the IRS database to check if the provided TIN/name combination of the profile matches the IRS records. If the TIN matches the records, it’s a TIN Match. When the details do not match the IRS records, it’s known as TIN Mismatch.
Understanding TIN Matching
TIN Matching helps you understand if the incoming profile has a valid taxpayer identification number and if they comply with the IRS. When the TIN does not match the IRS records, it is an indication that the entity or the individual provided an incorrect TIN.
If the TIN does match the official records, it is an indication that the individual or entity is in good standing with the IRS, helping you proceed to the next stages of the customer identification process.
Primarily, the TIN Match check helps you confirm if the provided TIN is valid or not.
Is TIN Matching Necessary?
TIN Match or TIN Lookup is essential when you want to establish business compliance and practice ethical regulatory reporting regimes as prescribed by the federal agencies.
Businesses need to obtain the tax details, such as the name, TIN, and other information of the incoming profile to record, identify, validate, and verify the identities of the profiles.
This information is verified by the authorized records of the IRS to check the authenticity and validity.
TIN Matching facilitates the following.
- Validates the real-time TIN match status
- Prevents TIN discrepancies with the IRS
- Accelerates onboarding processes
- Improves approval rates
- Maintains tax compliance
- Accelerates regulatory reporting
- Helps detect identity theft
- Prevents IRS B-notices and assessments
- Prevents onboarding non-compliant profiles
- Assesses profile credibility
- Reduces friction during the KYC process
TIN Match is one of the most crucial steps in the business KYC and CIP procedures where businesses arrive at certain decisions based on the TIN Match status. This is especially true for businesses within the financial services sector, insurance, lending, health care, education, and other industries.
TIN Matching is absolutely necessary if you want to onboard compliant profiles and foster long-term success.
Compliancely’s Real-Time TIN Matching To Validate Your Payee TINs
Verifying a TIN or two might not seem like a huge task. However, when you continue to onboard hundreds and thousands of profiles throughout the year, the total number of TINs you need to verify turns into this humungous task that you simply cannot wrap your head around.
And let’s not forget that the IRS is pretty stern about TIN discrepancies, where each incorrect TIN reported could cost you at least $250.
Compliancely, a real-time identity verification API infrastructure, enables you to validate the taxpayer identification number (TIN) of an entity or an individual within seconds per the IRS records.
You can import your data lists to Compliancely and check 100,000+ TINs and get comprehensive reports within minutes, saving you time and resources.
Further, our Real-Time TIN Match solutions allow you to validate the profile’s TIN in real-time. Our databases are being updated continuously to offer you dynamic identity verification experiences, giving you the latest, most recent, verified results.
Apart from IRS TIN Match, you can also explore our 17+ Real-Time Identity Checks to vet your profiles thoroughly and make fact-driven decisions for your business.
