[free me]

H1B visa holders and any other visa holder entitled to work gets a social security number. Their dependents would get and H4B and a TIN# to be claimed by the H1B holder.

[muawiyah]

It's the same as a Social Security number, but I know an H1B holder who had hers converted to a social security number when she was approved for immigration. H1B is not a permanent visa.

I think what we have here are IRS auditors pulling a couple of dozen cases in a validation audit and finding more than the previously understood number of errors. It's a quality control problem ~ not a full blown statistical sample.