[harjani]

Recently I applied for an Itin number for my daughters who are 16 and 18 years of age.I hold a L1 visa for the last 2 years and they hold a L2 visa respectively.Prior to this they had a student visa for 1 year.Tecnically they have been living in the state of New Jersey for the last 3 years.They leave the country for a holiday of 4 to 6 weeks every year. I submited the W2 form and 1040A for the year 2009 with them as dependents.They were refused the Itin on the basis that they do not meet the physical or substantial presence test or qualify to be claimed as an exemption for tax purposes. My elder daughter is in in the last year of her High School.She has been applying for colleges.Every college requires you to give your tax payer ID number.Since she does not have one they are considering her to be an International Student.Please advice what I should do.

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

The IRS rejection is an error. If your children were in the U.S. for 46 of the 52 weeks in 2009 under the L-2 visa, they clearly met the 183-day Substantial Presence Test. I would have to review the W-7s submitted for them to be sure, but I suspect that there is a simple clerical error that is responsible for the rejection.

If the ITIN application was rejected, that means your 2009 tax return was adjusted to delete them from the return. You need to amend your 2009 return using Form 1040X, adding them back on as dependents and re-submitting the Forms W-7 with notarized photocopies of their passport and visa pages.

If you need professional help to do this, email me at [email protected].