Sec. 4 Issuer “A” Record — Publication 1516

The Issuer “A” Record identifies the agency that made the payments and provides parameters for the succeeding Payee “B” Records. The IRS computer programs rely on the absolute relationship between the parameters and data fields in the “A” Record and the data fields in the “B” Record to which they apply.

All records must be a fixed length of 750 positions.

An “A” Record may be blocked with “B” Records; however, the initial record on a file must be a Transmitter “T” Record followed by an Issuer “A” Record. The IRS will accept an “A” Record after a “C” Record.

The number of “A” Records appearing on the file will depend on the number of agencies being reported. A separate “A” Record is required for each agency followed by the Payee “B” Records for the agency. Each set of “B” Records is followed by a summary “C” Record. If more than one agency is being reported on a file, an “A” Record may follow a “C” Record (that is, the “A,” “B,” and “C” Records for one agency may be followed by “A,” “B,” and “C” Records for the next agency, etc.).

All alpha characters entered in the “A” Record must be uppercase.

Record Name: Issuer “A” Record

Field Positions	Field Title	Length	General Field Descriptions
1	Record Type	1	Required. Enter “A.”
2-5	Payment Year	4	Required. Enter the four-digit year in which the contract is signed.
6-11	Blank	6	Enter blanks.
12-20	Issuer’s Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)	9	Required. Enter the valid nine-digit taxpayer identification number assigned to the federal executive agency. Don’t enter blanks, hyphens, or alpha characters. All zeros, ones, twos, etc., will have the effect of an incorrect TIN.
21-24	Issuer Name Control	4	Enter the four characters of the name control. Generally, the Name Control is the first four characters of the issuer’s name. The word “The” should be disregarded when it is the first word of the name unless the name contains only two words. This field should be left blank if the name control is not determinable. SeePart D, Exhibit 1, Name Control for additional guidance.
25	Blank	1	Enter blank.
26-27	Type of Return	2	Required. Enter “G.” Left justify, blank fill.
28	Amount Indicator	1	Required. Enter “8”.
29-51	Blank	23	Enter blanks.
52	Foreign Address Indicator	1	Enter a “1” if the address of the issuer is in a foreign country; otherwise, enter blank.
53-92	First Issuer Name Line	40	Required. Enter the name of the federal agency whose TIN appears in positions 12-20 of the “A” Record. The name of the agency must be entered in the way it is used in normal business. Left justify information and fill unused positions with blanks. Delete extraneous information.
93-132	Second Issuer Name Line	40	Required. Enter the name and title of the person to whom requests for an offset against any unpaid tax liability of the contractor can be sent. Abbreviate if necessary.
133	Blank	1	Enter blank.

For U.S. addresses, the issuer city, state, and ZIP Code must be reported as 40, 2, and 9 position fields, respectively. Filers must adhere to the correct format for the issuer city, state, and ZIP Code. For foreign addresses, filers may use the issuer city, state, and ZIP Code as a continuous 51 position field. Enter information in the following order: city, province or state, postal code, and the name of the country. When reporting a foreign address, the Foreign Address Indicator in position 52 must contain a “1.”

Record Name: Issuer “A” Record

Field Positions	Field Title	Length	General Field Descriptions
500-507	Record Sequence Number	8	Required. • Enter the number of the record as it appears within your file. The record sequence number for the “T” Record will always be “1,” since it is the first record on your file, and you can have only one “T” Record in a file. • Each record, thereafter, must be increased by one in ascending numerical sequence, that is, 2, 3, 4, etc. • Right justify numbers with leading zeros in the field. • The “T” Record sequence number would appear as “00000001” in the field, the first “A” Record would be “00000002” • The first “B” Record, “00000003”, the second “B” Record, “00000004” Continue sequencing until you reach the final record of the file, the “F” Record.
508-748	Blank	241	Enter blanks.
749-750	Blank	2	Enter blanks or carriage return/line feed (CR/LF) characters.