W-9 for LLCLine 1 is the name that files
People ask which name goes first. The instructions answer with the person whose return actually reports the income.
Name the line
Why the first line is not the sign on the truck.
If another company owns this one and that owner is itself disregarded, keep walking until you reach an owner that files. That owner's name is line 1. Stopping at the first LLC because it has a certificate on the wall is how a payer ends up reporting income to a taxpayer who does not file it.
The company name is not thrown away. It can sit on line 2, the business name, when it differs from the name on the return. Vendors still recognize the shop. The IRS recognizes the person. Those two jobs are why the form has two lines instead of one.
The invoice name and the return name can sit in two different places, and the payer's email will not sort that out. The patience is the same as reading the return before you print. The filer's name goes ahead of the name painted on the truck, even when the invoice has used the truck name all year.
What a wrong first line does in January.
The payer builds information returns from the form they hold. If line 1 is the company and the return is the owner, the information return points at a taxpayer the income does not use. The owner then has a transcript that does not match the return, and the company has a transcript for income it was never meant to report.
The fix for a form still in the payer's file is a new form. Line 1 becomes the owner. The number becomes the owner's. Line 2 keeps the company if the payer needs it to find you. A form that already became an information return is a different repair, and it is the payer's repair.
Backup withholding sits behind this. A refused form or a missing number can force the payer to withhold. Nobody enjoys that surprise on a payment they already spent. The rate is whatever the instructions currently print. We do not freeze it here.
The books have to agree with the name.
A clean form on top of messy books still leaves the return exposed. Deposits that are really the owner's personal money do not belong in company income. Deposits that are really company money do not belong in a miscellaneous pile with no name. We separate those before we talk about which name the form should shout.
Equity is where owner money moves. A draw, a contribution, and a reimbursement are three different events. Calling all three a miscellaneous expense makes the profit, and the form, tell a story the bank does not support.
If the company is about to change how it is taxed, line 1 may have to change with it, and only after the election is accepted. Changing the form the week you mail Form 2553, before anyone has accepted it, is how a payer gets a letter the IRS has not agreed to yet.
A plain way to start.
Bring the return you filed last year, or the one you are about to file, and the form the payer is holding. The two names either match or they do not. That comparison is the whole first conversation.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice. The call is a conversation. The letter, if there is one, comes after both sides know whether this is a five-minute correction or a year of books.
If the disregarded rule on this page already finished the errand, you do not owe a call. Send the right form and get back to the shop. We would rather you leave with the answer than stay for a meeting you do not need.
Which name is on the form
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.