W-9 for LLCThe pen stays with the person named
People ask if we can sign so the payment lands today. We will name the box and stop.
Ask about the signature
The certification is a statement.
The form is a statement by the person who signs it. You are saying the number is correct, that backup withholding either does not apply or you have told them the truth about it, and that you are a US person. Those are not sentences we can adopt for you.
If you know the box is wrong, do not sign that box. A customer who is impatient is not a change in the facts. We can sit on a screen and point at the line. The pen is still yours, whether you are at a kitchen table or in the shop.
A boarding pass and this form share one rule. The name printed on the paper is the person who has to act. We can point at the line on a video call from our own office. We do not sign, and we do not pretend the payer's portal is a gate we can walk through for you. The pen stays with the person the paper names.
What we will do on the call.
We will read the election you already have, or the fact that you do not have one. We will say which box reports that fact. We will say which name and which number belong with it. Then we stop, and you sign or you decide not to.
We will not sign, initial, or upload the form into a customer's portal under your login. We will not call the customer and talk them into a box. If the right help is a signed attest report, the disclosures page says where that work lives.
A preparer can still prepare the return that the form has to match. That is a different signature, on a different paper, under a letter that names the scope. Do not let a vendor's portal collapse those two jobs into one panicked afternoon.
When the signer is not the owner who files.
Sometimes a manager is asked to sign because the owner is on a job site. The instructions care about authority and about truth, not about convenience. If the manager does not know the election, the manager should not invent one. Waiting a day for the owner is cheaper than a year of wrong information returns.
A multi-member company has its own rules about who may bind it. The form still has to match the return the company files. A member who owns a slice does not automatically put a personal number on a partnership's form.
We keep the question boring on purpose. Who files the income. Who is signing. Do those two facts agree. If they do, sign. If they do not, fix the paper or change who holds the pen.
After the signature.
Keep a copy. The payer's copy can be misfiled, and next January you will want to know what you signed. The copy belongs with the vendor or customer file, not in a folder called miscellaneous.
If the election changes later, the old signature does not update itself. A new form is the update. The old one is history. History is useful. It is not current.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice if you want the box named before you sign. If you already know the box, sign the true one and skip us. That is a good outcome.
Who is being asked to sign
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.