The Internal Revenue Service estimates that foreign-status and U.S. withholding certifications account for more than 30.5 million hours of annual paperwork burden.
IRS is seeking comment on renewing the collection covering Forms W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, W-8ECI, W-8EXP and W-8IMY. The agency says it is making no change to the burden estimate in this review.
The forms let foreign individuals, entities, intermediaries, governments and some tax-exempt organizations certify their status for U.S. withholding and reporting purposes.
Withholding agents use those certifications to determine the applicable tax treatment, including possible reduced rates or exemptions under the Internal Revenue Code. The collection notice does not itself change anyone's tax liability.
IRS estimates 3,390,700 respondents, an average of nine hours and one minute per respondent and 30,562,942 total annual burden hours.
Those figures are Paperwork Reduction Act estimates for the entire collection. They do not mean every filer completes all five forms or spends the same amount of time.
The affected public includes businesses, individuals and nonprofit institutions. IRS is asking whether the collection has practical utility, whether its estimate is accurate and whether technology or other changes could reduce burden.
Comments are due Oct. 13. The renewal process does not provide individualized tax guidance, and the notice says public comments should omit confidential or sensitive personal information.