W-9 AND W-8:
GETTING PAID AT ALL.

The distinction is US tax residency, not where you happen to bank. Getting it wrong means the wrong withholding treatment and a correction that takes months.

Without a valid form on file, a payer is required to withhold a flat percentage of payments and remit it. You get it back eventually by filing a return; in the meantime it is working capital you no longer have, taken automatically, on every payment.

The name and taxpayer number on the form must match what the IRS holds. A mismatch produces a notice to the payer, who is then obliged to start withholding until it is fixed — so a typo has the same effect as no form at all.

GRAJ records that a form is on file, its type, entity classification and the LAST FOUR DIGITS of the taxpayer number — never the whole number. A full SSN or EIN sitting in a database is a breach waiting for its disclosure letter, and it is not needed: Stripe collects the full number during payout onboarding, because Stripe is the party that issues the information return.