In The Global Indie Author I advise authors who live near the U.S. border, or in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Beijing, or Guaynabo where the IRS have an office attached to the U.S. embassy, that the easiest and cheapest way to apply for the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is to attend in person with your passport at the IRS office; this negates the need to have your identification (your passport) authenticated first. Unfortunately, without warning the IRS have changed their rules and now require all foreign identification be authenticated by the issuing agency regardless of whether you apply in person or by post.

Previously, with regards to Canadian authors, our passport offices would refuse to authenticate documents (that is, photocopy the identity page in your passport and notarize it as a copy of an authentic document) unless we first had a letter from the IRS requesting this. Since this was near impossibile, authors who could not attend in person at an IRS office had to engage in a lengthy and expensive process known as legalization and authentication. Now, however, it appears the IRS have had a word with Canada because the passport office will now copy and authenticate your passport.

What makes this new rule particularly annoying is that Canadian authors attending at an IRS office in the U.S. would have had to use their passport (or enhanced driver’s licence) to enter the country; so a document that passed border inspection still has to be authenticated? It doesn’t make sense but, then again, this is government.

Authors who attend an an IRS office at one of the embassies listed above will likely find themselves in a similar situation and should expect to need their identification authenticated in advance of attending at the IRS office.