LLC: EIN or SSN?

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Question:

A customer came in and opened an LLC account. On tax ID# we put applied for.We received a letter from his accountant. That says LLC is a single member limited liability company. A single member LLC reports income on Schedule C of the individual's personal income tax return. IRS will not issue an Employer Identification number to a single member limited liability company unless there are employees. Do we need to change the card to his name dba as the company name. His accountant says do not do that, just add his SSN# to the LLC.

Answer:

There are a lot of "depends on" to my answer. Let's go to the last questions first - Do we need to change the card to his name dba as the company name? That depends on the fact that if there is a separate company name, and you use his social security number, the answer is probably, yes, it should be a dba. You can just add his SS# to the LLC, but if he EVER has an employee, he's going to have to have a state ID number. The corporate number is a state number, and every state has its own laws regarding corporations. And my accountant says the IRS will issue an EIN to a single member LLC in every state he knows of. Better check your state laws.

First published on BankersOnline.com 12/3/01