A friend of mine forwarded this to me, and I thought some of you
residing in North America might find it useful.

God Bless!
Pa Mambuna

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IRS warns on glitch
Married names might not match those on file in IRS
records                       November 17, 2000: 7:49 a.m. ET


NEW YORK (AP) - Millions of Americans may have to dig out their marriage

certificates after the IRS sent out letters warning women that the
married names on their tax returns do not match up with their
Social Security numbers.

Most of the cases involve women who took their husbands' names when they

got married. For various reasons, their new names were entered
incorrectly into
the Social Security system or weren't entered at all.

The IRS said that unless the taxpayers straighten out the problem with
the Social Security Administration, when they file their
tax returns in the spring they could
be denied the earned income tax credit or the personal exemption a
spouse gets when a couple files jointly.

"You may have your refund delayed," added John M. Dalrymple, an Internal

Revenue Service commissioner in the wage and investment division, "or
you
may have to have a lengthy conversation with us."

In some cases, couples who have been married for decades are returning
to
Social Security offices with their marriage certificates and other
documentation.

The Social Security Administration said the documents can be mailed in,
but they have to be originals, not copies.

Fred Borsello, an engineer at a Long Island manufacturing company
who           received a letter dated Oct. 30, said he and
others fear the originals might be
lost by the same bureaucrats he holds responsible for the mess.

"The only way to clear this up is for my wife to take a day off from
work, go
down to the Social Security office for the second time and get this
taken care
of," said Borsello, who insisted his wife contacted the Social Security
Administration after their wedding more than 20 years ago and made
the             appropriate changes.

The letters went out to 2.4 million taxpayers filing joint tax returns.
"We sent
out an information notice to people, saying that based on the records,
your
name and Social Security number do not match," Dalrymple said. "They
have
to match, by law. You've got this time window to get this straightened
out with
the Social Security Administration."

He said the move is part of an effort to reduce fraud. "Congress passed
the law
to make sure that there were legitimate people making legitimate claims
to offset tax liability or to claim refunds," Dalrymple
said.

Social Security and IRS officials said there were various reasons for
the
discrepancies -- including failure by taxpayers to inform the Social
Security
Administration of name changes, as well as failure by government
bureaucrats
to enter the correct information into their computers when it was
originally
provided.

Social Security spokesman John Clark said the cause could be as simple
as a
transposed number or some other typographical error. With the increase
in the
ability of computers to cross-check names and numbers over the past two
decades, discrepancies that once were buried deep in file cabinets can
now be
found with the click of a computer mouse.

Borsello said Wednesday that he was at work, talking with someone at the

Social Security Administration about his plight, when a co-worker in an
adjacent cubicle overheard his phone call and said his wife had gotten
the
same letter.  "Obviously, this must be a problem that is pretty
widespread,"

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