requesting Tax id number for IRS

[granola]

Has anyone received the following message on their Paypal "My Account" page.  I received an email requesting my tax id number or SS number several weeks ago. I immediately forwarded it to Paypal and they said it was a scam.   This message showed up on my account page and has stayed there and I am continuing to get emails requesting the same.  Any help?   Thanks.

***Please provide us with your tax ID number. Your tax ID number lets us
send you Form 1099-K, as required by the IRS under certain conditions. Find more
information about the new tax rules and why we need your tax ID at
www.paypal.com/irs. Provide
your tax ID number now.***

[ohbrudder93]

Thanks for your reply, Andy

While 200 sales may sound like a lot, when the majority of them are .99 items, it doesn't add up to much LOL. I'm at just about $6000 total for sales and postage charged and don't plan to use my PayPal account again until I start selling middle of the school year items in February. If PayPal does something like limit or suspend my account for not supplying my SSN, will they lift that January 1st when they see I didn't hit $20K?

Thanks

[PayPal_Andy]

gm1230126-  The way I understand it, when we request that information is based on the trends of your account. Looking at your past history and extrapolating till the end of the year, at some point we determined there was a possibility that you would hit the minimum thresholds.  Once that possibility exists, we need to request that information.  Which leads us into ohbrudder93's answer:

Once a limitation has been placed on an account, it will exist until the information or steps to lift it are removed.  Once we ask for information and limit an account, even if you stop the behavior that caused it (in this case selling), you have to provide the information before you can continue using PayPal.  I can completely understand where you're coming from, but if what you are mentioning was possible, we'd have customers who'd get right to the edge, wait until the beginning of the new year, then start up again.  We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can.

Andy

[celebrations]

Well maybe someone here can answer this then since no one at PayPal has bothered to respond to this question in 2 months of requests:

Specifically, there is no opportunity I've found other than going through transaction by transaction to discover which items and amounts PayPal is basing its request/reporting upon - and even then, despite reading everything PayPal has on the site, I am still unclear which transactions are being counted and which are not! (We run household expenses through the PayPal account as well as ebay sales, but it could take hours to figure out which PayPal is basing it on and which it is not - hours I don't have). If PayPal is going to require such information, they need to provide a means (e.g. a report) that clearly and succinctly shows what transactions are being counted and where the account stands. Where can I find such a report?

[PayPal_Andy]

celebrations-  I will be more than happy to answer this as best as I can.  First off, as far as what counts and what doesn't, any incoming funds for goods or services will be counted. Any personal payments will not.  As far as reports, there's a couple options you can try.  If you go to the 'History' link in your account and hover over that, you'll have a 'Download history' option and a 'Reports' option.  You can try the 'Reports' section, but depending on how you have your business set up, this may not be very useful.

The other option will probably work better. If you download your history into Excel, you can filter it by the different types of payments received and work from that.  All of this is provided that you have a premier/business account.  If you're using a personal account, that's fine, but that will limit some of your options as a business.

Hope that answers your questions.

Andy

[ricardoramos971]

how I add my tax  id to my papypal? cant find how, only ssn. thanks

[ramblinmustang]

Paypal Andy's statement:

Once a limitation has been placed on an account, it will exist until the information or steps to lift it are removed.  Once we ask for information and limit an account, even if you stop the behavior that caused it (in this case selling), you have to provide the information before you can continue using PayPal.  I can completely understand where you're coming from, but if what you are mentioning was possible, we'd have customers who'd get right to the edge, wait until the beginning of the new year, then start up again.  We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can.

Paypal Andy,, first off...I have over $20k in sales but only 23 sales transactions. I do not feel that PP needs to have my SSN because I will not be anywhere near the 200 transaction requirement set forth by the IRS. But something you said in the above statement disturbs me. You said "We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can." Now I'm not even close and this is not my game but what gives PP the right to minimize the loopholes? Are you the IRS and did you make the rules that are now in effect? If someone wants to sell under the threshold...who cares. Why should PP care? PP is a company and they are there to make $$$. If a customer of PP wants to sell just under the threshold....why should PP care? It is PP's responsibility to report people with $20k in sales and over 200 transactions....THAT'S ALL!!!  Your business is not to minimize the loopholes......that's what Congress and their laws are supposed to do. Please rethink what you said because it's utter nonsense.

[ramblinmustang]

Paypal Andy's statement:

Once a limitation has been placed on an account, it will exist until the information or steps to lift it are removed.  Once we ask for information and limit an account, even if you stop the behavior that caused it (in this case selling), you have to provide the information before you can continue using PayPal.  I can completely understand where you're coming from, but if what you are mentioning was possible, we'd have customers who'd get right to the edge, wait until the beginning of the new year, then start up again.  We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can.

Paypal Andy,, first off...I have over $20k in sales but only 23 sales transactions. I do not feel that PP needs to have my SSN because I will not be anywhere near the 200 transaction requirement set forth by the IRS. But something you said in the above statement disturbs me. You said "We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can." Now I'm not even close and this is not my game but what gives PP the right to minimize the loopholes? Are you the IRS and did you make the rules that are now in effect? If someone wants to sell under the threshold...who cares. Why should PP care? PP is a company and they are there to make $$$. If a customer of PP wants to sell just under the threshold....why should PP care? It is PP's responsibility to report people with $20k in sales and over 200 transactions....THAT'S ALL!!!  Your business is not to minimize the loopholes......that's what Congress and their laws are supposed to do. Please rethink what you said because it's utter nonsense.

[ramblinmustang]

Paypal Andy's statement:

Once a limitation has been placed on an account, it will exist until the information or steps to lift it are removed.  Once we ask for information and limit an account, even if you stop the behavior that caused it (in this case selling), you have to provide the information before you can continue using PayPal.  I can completely understand where you're coming from, but if what you are mentioning was possible, we'd have customers who'd get right to the edge, wait until the beginning of the new year, then start up again.  We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can.

Paypal Andy,, first off...I have over $20k in sales but only 23 sales transactions. I do not feel that PP needs to have my SSN because I will not be anywhere near the 200 transaction requirement set forth by the IRS. But something you said in the above statement disturbs me. You said "We can't have that (avoidance of tax laws and all that), so we have to minimize the loopholes where we can." Now I'm not even close and this is not my game but what gives PP the right to minimize the loopholes? Are you the IRS and did you make the rules that are now in effect? If someone wants to sell under the threshold...who cares. Why should PP care? PP is a company and they are there to make $$$. If a customer of PP wants to sell just under the threshold....why should PP care? It is PP's responsibility to report people with $20k in sales and over 200 transactions....THAT'S ALL!!!  Your business is not to minimize the loopholes......that's what Congress and their laws are supposed to do. Please rethink what you said because it's utter nonsense.

[GearTalk]

Hi Andy,

I received the email asking for SSN or TIN today. OK fine. Here are the instructions in the email:

We want to help you continue to sell with PayPal and to avoid any
interruption to your account. It's easy — here's how:

1.  Log in to your PayPal account.
2.  A message will appear asking you to update your information.
3.  Click Provide Now.

So, I followed the instructions and logged into my account expecting to see the "message" asking me to update and... NOTHING. No message and I can find NO PLACE to enter this info.

Then I found this topic in the help forum. Great. And, there was a link in the original post in the Thread with a link to enter your SSN/TIN. So, I clicked that and got an error message about the page being out of date.

OK. So I closed that window and received an email from PayPal thanking me for adding my SSN/TIN. Which I had not done.

So, what gives on this? This system is obviously not working as expected. Please advise.

[cacycleworks]

We got the notice to provide the tax ID number and also were not given the notice to provide it. Please reply with the menu path to use to provide or verify our tax ID number. I don't mind providing it, but have spent too much time already on the hunt for how to give it.

Thanks,

cacycleworks

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hi cacycleorks, and welcome to the forums!

Here’s how to add your Tax Identification Number to your PayPal account:

1. Click “Provide your Tax ID number now” at the top of your Account Overview page.
2. Select the type of Tax ID number you’re providing: SSN, EIN, or ITIN.
3. Make sure your name, address and other account information are correct and correspond to the information you use for IRS purposes.
4. Enter your Tax ID number in the requested fields.
5. Click “Continue”.

I hope this helps!

Olivia