Revenue eBrief No. 03/13 - Extension of The Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) And Tax Registration Number Range With Effect From 1 January 2013
Background
The purpose of this eBrief is to alert practitioners to the changes that are taking place to new Personal Public Services Numbers (PPSNs) and Tax Registration Numbers (including VAT, Employer's PAYE/PRSI and Corporation Tax reference numbers for non-individual cases) being issued from January 2013.
As you may already be aware, the Department of Social Protection (DSP) is extending the current stock of PPSNs with effect from January 2013. The extension was necessary because of the exhaustion of the remaining stock of usable numbers.
The Changes
In brief, the format of the new numbers will be nine characters, seven numerics followed by two alpha characters. For individuals, the second alpha character in the new PPSN will be ‘A’ (e.g. 1234567FA) and for non-individual cases, e.g. Limited Companies, Trusts, Partnerships and Unincorporated Bodies, this will be ‘H’ (e.g. 1234567WH). The alpha character in position 8 will continue to operate as the check character for existing and new numbers, except that the calculation used (Modulus 23) will be revised to avoid confusion between ‘old format’ and ‘new format’ numbers.
Throughout 2012, Revenue has been in communication with all the appropriate stakeholders (e.g. software providers, various bodies with whom we exchange data electronically etc.) to ensure that all the necessary IT developments were in place to accept, transmit and receive the new format numbers as appropriate. This is now in place since 1 January 2013.
New Format PPSN
The DSP has advised that they will commence issuing the new format PPSNs (for individuals) in the first quarter of 2013 and until then they will continue to issue old format numbers from the remaining stock of old numbers.
New Format Tax Registration Number
All Companies, Trusts, Partnerships and Unincorporated Bodies newly registered after 1 January 2013 will have the new format registration number assigned to them. As mentioned above, these will be characterised by the letter ‘H’ as the second alpha character.
Existing PPSN/Tax Registration Numbers
Finally, it is important to note that existing PPSNs/Tax Registration numbers already issued will remain unchanged and will continue to be valid
Source: Revenue Commissioners www.revenue.ie Copyright Acknowledged.