Employers or other taxpaying entities complete a paper or electronic Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) Form SS-4 (Application for an Employer Identification Number (EIN)).
The IRS reviews the application and assigns an EIN to each new business owner.
The U.S. Census Bureau developed the North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS) to identify businesses and assign a six-digit industry code.
The Office of Systems uploads the SS-4 applications for the week to SSA’s mainframe.
The Center for Automation, Security, and Integrity (CASI) runs an Artificial Intelligence
(AI) Autocoder program to assign the appropriate NAICS industry code. The remaining
unassigned applications are placed in an application database for the Division of
Earnings and Business Services (DEBS) to manually assign the appropriate industry
code.