How to get ITIN early

gobbled · Post by **gobbled** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:01 pm

Hi,

My wife holds TD visa and she is not eligible for SSN, we are both resident alien for tax purpose when we file our first tax next year.

I know that you can file your tax with W-7 form to IRS early next year to get ITIN. My question is how to get it early. I believe afte you get your ITIN, you can apply for credit card and start to build up your credit history.

I was looking at W-7 here http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw7.pdf
and there is an exeption #1 on page 5 , third section saying if your bank confirms that you need ITIN for tax withholding and provide you a documentation, then you don't need to wait till tax season. However, all the banks I talked to are not willing to provide me this documentation, they simply ask me to fill out W8-BEN which is for non-resident alien.

From below page, seems this firm can get me an ITIN but it does not mention whether it can be done anytime of the year.

http://www.serbinski.com/CdnInUS/USIden ... tance.html

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

nelsona · Post by **nelsona** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 7:58 am

Your ITIN is NOT useful for credit card or credit info. Thos e who have tried this in the past have been accused of credit fraud, so forget that. Your spouse faces what ALL TD.H4s face when they come to US -- almost non-existence.

Your spouse will get their ITIN -- which is solely for tax purposes -- when you file your joint return. No point trying to hurry it for an invalid reason.

The procedure that you pointed to, besides being outdated, does not apply to you. It applies to someone living OUTSIDE US, who, for example, sells a US property. You won't need an Acceptance agent to file W-7.

gobbled · Post by **gobbled** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:34 am

Thanks Nelson for your reply.

I read it somewhere saying you can apply credit card using your ITIN and once you get your SSN later down the road, your credit history against your ITIN will merge with your new credit history using your SSN. Is this true?

Basically you are saying for TD visa holder, they cannot apply for credit card even they have ITIN. I need to call the bank again to verify this. Somehow I got a feeling that as long as you have ITIN , they can issue you a credit card.

nelsona · Post by **nelsona** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:43 am

Neither Credit card companies nor Credit bureaus accept ITIN as a substitute for SSN. they may extend a credit card, bu tnot on the basis of ITIN.

Your bank is free to lend money or extend credit to whomewver they wish, of course. It will not make it into her credit history though, since credit history is only built thru connection to SSN.

canuckmom · Post by **canuckmom** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:47 pm

We moved down and I had TD, my husband TN. We applied for a joint credit card and got a Platinum Visa cards right away. A couple of months later, when we were checking our credit record, I have a credit record with what looks to be an arbitrary number that has been assigned.

We did fill in forms for ITIN with taxes, but I don't have one yet.

Be sure to ask for joint credit card and not a subsidiary one as a secondary cardholder does not earn credit on a subsidiary card.

gobbled · Post by **gobbled** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 8:19 pm

Thanks Nelson again.

Good tips CanuckMom. I added my wife as secondary card holder on my chase visa. Guess that does not help much. I will apply my next credit card jointly with my wife next time.

Cheers
Gobble