I’m a self publishing author from Austria and my company name under which I pay taxes is the German equivalent to “First Name Last Name Publishing”.
I have no SSN or ITIN or anything like that.
I faxed the SS-4 form a week ago but I think I must have filled it incorrectly because I never received the promised reply after 4 business days.
So I called the number 001 267 941 1099 yesterday at about 23:00 and was put on hold.
No need to press any phone key just wait and listen to the nice music.
After about 30 minutes a man answered, told me his name and his IRS number and asked what he can do for me.
I said my name is …, I’m calling from Austria and I would need an EIN number.
The first question was about my role in my company: Sole Proprietor
Then
Do you have a Social Security Number (SSN): No.
Then
First Name
Last Name
Phone number
Company Name
Street address
House number
City
Postal code
Country
Month of Business start: January
Year: 2001
Reason for applying: I said that I think the correct answer is “Compliance with IRS withholding regulation”
This took about 10 minutes because I slowly spelled every letter to him and he confirmed the letters and numbers by repeating them.
(It would have been faster and more fool proof if I had spelled like this “A like Apple”, “C like Charlie”.)
After this the man told me that he had activated my EIN and that I would receive a letter with my EIN in about 4 weeks.
And then … he gave me my EIN number over the phone.
It is formated like this: 9x-xxxxxxx (Enter it without the dash in Apples online form)
My costs so far are a 40 minutes long distance call to the USA.
If you can spell the English alphabet you can do it.
Also look up the correct phone code for calling you from within the USA.
I hope this encourages others from outside the USA in a similar situation to call the IRS under the above number.
