So it is tax time and I need to get ITIN numbers for my children.

I am being told I have two options, send my childrens actual passports to Austin, wait 10 weeks and then get them back, or take my children to the tax office, wait 5 hours two under 5's in tow and let the agent actually see my children are mine.

Can anyone offer anything else! Neither of these options are appealing

I would happily sit down there on my own, show them the passports and take the 5 hour hit, but 5 hours with them screaming and bored (not to mention Mrs Canveydave) is too much to handle!

We did ours 3 yrs ago, so things may have changed but short answer is yes. I would not put my passports in the post, so the whole family trekked from Charleston, SC to the nearest tax office that could do this - Charlotte, NC. ie a 3 hr drive each way, plus the wait in the office. Who said tax wasn't fun?

We had to do ours 5 years ago in NC, and we didn't need to take the children - just their passports and birth certificates with our names on it. The tax office kindly took our tax return, submitted the kids requests for ITINs with it and about 7 weeks later we had our first refund - whoop!!

On the plus side, you got to visit Charlotte!

Yes it is that tough, inflexible, and bureaucratic.

I feel your pain. We had to do the ITIN thing last year.
We sent notarized visas and passports via mail. They rejected them.

I tried the tax advocate place, but they simply never answer the phone and there is no email address.

Eventually we HAD to go to an IRS office that was able to deal with ITIN's. Ours was in Santa Ana, CA.
We could not make an appointment, so our whole family (all 6 of us) turned up at 8am. We were 40 people back in the queue. We queued up outside in 90C for 2 hours before going inside.
Eventually we saw a helpful lady who took our passports, and officially i.e. IRS notarized them. They went into the system and a month later we had the ITIN's.

The whole experience took over 6 hours.

I, my husband and two kids waited in line at the IRS office just of the 1-45 on the 04th Jan. Turned up at 0700 and a queue had already formed, anyway, we got in and were told that they couldn't issue ITIN numbers for our children unless we had a previous tax return and as this was our first having arrived Jan'15 the only options available were to send our passports and birth certificates in the post or you can request the ITIN numbers on your tax return when you are ready to submit it. I have spoken to an accountant who has confirmed this is correct. Hope it helps.

How do illegals get them?

They borrow someone elses. It only gets awkward when the true holder of the number dies.

Alternatively you could contact a Certifying Acceptance Agent for assistance.

HTH

Catherine

Under IRS rules to prevent fraud, Certifying Acceptance Agents cannot help with dependent children.

Try doing it from overseas! I had to get ITIN's for my 2 daughters last year, and we live in the UK. After one failed attempt (my fault - I hadn't changed my social security number to my married name) and about £40 in postage, the passports arrived back from Texas. Cost me a fortune but, once I'd sorted my end out, it was way faster than a 10 week turnaround.

Why did the daughters not qualify for US Social Security Numbers?

I didn't meet the requirements to pass on citizenship as I left the US at 12, and haven't spent enough time there since. If I'd known it was all so complicated, I would have gone back more often!!!