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Focus on New Laws: Use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers on Applications
Housing rental applications and certain gas and electric account applications must now allow use of individual taxpayer ID numbers instead of Social Security numbers.
Chapter 126 (HF 4975/SF 4942*) is the agriculture, commerce, and energy supplemental budget and policy bill. Article 6, section 5 includes a new requirement under Minnesota Statutes, section 216B.098 that if a utility currently requires a new customer to provide a Social Security number, it must accept an individual tax identification number in place of that and the utility application must explicitly state that as an option. The same language appears in Chapter 127, article 42, section 5. These changes went into effect July 1, 2024.
In addition, Chapter 108 (HF 4392/SF 4339*) is the omnibus human services policy bill. Section 7 amends Minnesota Statutes, section 504B.117 to require a landlord to provide the option for prospective tenants to submit an individual taxpayer identification number or a Social Security number in a rental application and prohibits the denial of an application solely based on a tenant opting to use an individual taxpayer identification number. These changes were effective beginning May 18, 2024, and apply to all residential housing applications, including public housing.
Background
This issue was initially raised as a tenants rights issue during development of legislation dealing with landlord-tenant relations and is intended to broaden the ways a prospective renter could provide necessary information for credit and background checks during their application process. The same discussion related to establishing utility service resulted in similar language being included in the energy bill covering applications for various types of gas, electric, and gas-electric hybrid service accounts.
Considerations
Cities should be aware that individual taxpayer identification numbers will be able to replace Social Security numbers in these situations and should change application forms to explicitly state that. The League recommends that cities and their attorneys review their local codes and ordinances to determine whether they have contradictory policies on the books.