Verifying Counterparties at Scale
TINCheck is a compliance verification service from Sovos that validates names and TIN/EIN (tax identification number) data against IRS databases. Businesses use it to reduce exposure to tax penalties, sanctions, and identity-based fraud by confirming the legitimacy of individuals and business counterparties before engagement.
Alice Katwan, president of revenue at Sovos, framed the use case squarely around enterprise risk: protecting the business from fraud and penalties associated with transactions against unverified people or entities.
How It Works
The platform supports both real-time compliance checks and automated verification via API integration into onboarding workflows. Customer and vendor data can be cross-referenced against government databases and international watchlists in a single lookup.
Who Benefits
Useful for organizations where counterparty verification is structurally important:
- Small to large enterprises verifying vendor tax compliance
- Financial services and fintech firms handling identity verification
- Payment processors running customer validation
- Gig-economy platforms onboarding suppliers at scale
Platform Advantages
- Speed — identity verification completes in seconds
- Flexibility — bulk processing and API integration both supported
- Coverage — checks against 30 global databases and watchlists
- Affordability — monthly plans, prepaid options, and volume discounts
- Security — TLS/SSL encryption, SOC 1 and ISO 27001 certified data centers
Implications
For firms managing 1099 reporting, sanctions screening, or high-volume vendor onboarding, integrated TIN validation substantially reduces back-office error rates and downstream penalty exposure. Manual-only verification workflows are increasingly untenable at any meaningful transaction volume.