I never heard of this before. When the FDIC was in for there exam they asked the BSA officer to run a report of all tax identification numbers that begin with an 8. Does anyone know why this should be done???

http://www.ssa.gov will give you info on how numbers are assigned.

Click on "Questions" at the top of the website page and you'll find it from there.

also, the IRS issues ITINs to non-US persons and they always begin with 9 and have 7 or 8 for the 4th digit.

Some banks create fictitious numbers to identify NRAs. They use 8s to denote "W8". I suspect your examiner may be looking for bogus TINs.

I print a bogus TIN report periodically using all 1s, 2s, etc, 123456789, and 987654321. Of course, then I have to be restrained.

Thanks,that makes sense.