The University's TIN's must be safeguarded from unathorized use by individuals and entities within or outside the University. In general, request for a University TIN are made by payers in order to properly report information in connection with miscellaneous payments made to the University (interest, dividends, rents , royalties, etc.) or by donors to enable them to claim tax deductions for gifts and donations made to the University.

The standard form used by payers to request TIN information is IRS Form W-9, "Request for Taxpayers Identification Number and Certification." Some organizations may use a substitute version of the Form W-9, which is permissible under IRS rules.

A campus must respond according to the circumstance of the request, as follows:

1. Information Reporting and Backup Withholding:

Since the University is a tax-exempt organization, its payers are not required to file an information return or initiate backup withholding in connection with any payments made to the University. However, in order to ensure that a payments will not be delayed due to the payer's effort to verify the University's tax status, the appropriate TIN should be provided to the payer by submitting a completed Form W-9 or a Form W-9 substitute.

As an alternative to completing the IRS Form W-9 or a Form W-9 substitute prepared by a payer, a substitute certification may be used for responding to request for a University TIN. The certification should be printed on University letterhead, completed, and attached to the TIN request.

2. Donors:

The University is sometimes asked to furnish its TIN to a donor to enable the donor to claim a tax deduction for his or her donation to the University. When a donation is intended for a campus, the campus TIN should be provided in coordination with the campus development office. When a donation does not specify a campus as the recipient, the TIN request should be referred to the Campus General Accounting for a determination of the appropriate TIN to be provided to the donor.
(Note: The Regents Assets Account TIN should be used for all gifts of stock.)

If someone asks or sends you a W-9 form to complete, generally, you can download the form from our main ID number. However, different ID #’s may be required for patient related accounts receivable. For those cases, we recommend that you contact Alice for assistance ( hychen@ucsd.edu, x-44502).