- 7 - Government has a compelling interest in effectively tracking claimed dependency exemptions.). Instead, petitioners contend that requiring them to use SSN’s for their children is not the least restrictive means of meeting the Government’s compelling interests. Petitioners further contend that issuing their children IRS individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITIN) is a less restrictive means of meeting respondent’s compelling interest than requiring SSN’s. Petitioners’ argument is substantially the same as the argument recently raised in Miller v. Commissioner, supra. In Miller, the taxpayers believed that SSN’s are universal numerical identifiers that were equated with the “mark of the Beast” warned against in the Bible at Revelation 13:16-17. In that case, the taxpayers’ religious objections extended only to unique numerical identifiers and not to numbers issued for discrete purposes. Accordingly, the taxpayers offered to obtain ITIN’s for their children and provide the ITIN’s on their return. In Miller, we rejected this argument. In so doing, we found that issuing ITIN’s to such individuals, who were otherwise eligible to receive an SSN, would be less effective in detecting fraud than requiring the use of SSN’s. SSN’s are unique numerical identifiers that are used to ferret out fraudulent applications through the use of computerPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011