W-9 for LLCFor Texas owners.
The practice is in Dallas. A Texas owner joins the same conversation by video, from the town where the envelope was opened.
Name the Texas paper.
The practice is in Dallas.
Steven Palmieri keeps the practice in Dallas, and Steven and his team read the payer's form against the return from that office. Owners in other Texas towns use the same video call. We do not rent a room in your town, and we will not pretend we spent a Saturday on your main street.
Readers outside Dallas and Fort Worth are Texans with us, and the three lines do not change with the miles. The form still asks for the same three lines, and the May report is still its own envelope. We start from the form you are holding and from the return it has to match.
Texas owners use one next step. Stay where the form was opened. We will say which name the payer should print, and we will say whether a franchise report is sitting in the same stack and needs its own date.
A fair that swallows a month.
Fair Park holds the State Fair of Texas for 24 days beginning the last Friday of September, a run kept in nearly every year since 1886. Texans know a fair that can take the whole month, and we are not staffing a booth on that midway.
Hire someone for a three-week stand and still collect the form before the first draw. January will treat a missing name as a mystery, and a short job is not a reason to skip the paper. The kinder moment is the day the work starts, while the fair or any other busy stretch is still ahead of the due date.
The vendor's box stays the vendor's. A blog sample does not get copied over the top of what the vendor wrote. If the box is nonsense, the vendor matches it to the vendor's own return, and the paper goes in the vendor file the same day.
Towers from 1936 and the name on line 1.
A lot of the buildings at Fair Park went up for the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936. A visitor sees towers. We see a company whose sign and whose return may not share a name, and we ask which name belongs on the first line.
While the company is disregarded, the number on the form is the owner's. The company's own EIN waits until the company is a partnership or a corporation. The exposition buildings can keep their old name on a plaque. The form cannot keep a plaque name when the return uses another one.
That comparison is the whole first conversation for a Texas owner. Bring the return and the form the payer is holding. The two names either match or they do not.
A blue norther does not edit line 1.
From November into March a blue norther can drop the air under a dark sky. Texans feel that turn wherever they stand, whether the office is in Dallas or the reader is hours away.
Line 1 still prints the filer's name after the front passes. Send the form that matches the return you will file. The town and the season are not on the form, and a cold week is a poor reason to leave the payer with last year's paper.
We know that front from winters of our own. The video call covers that cold front, so the form can be read without a drive. The three lines are the same lines in every Texas town.
The tall figure and the name to print.
Since 1952 Big Tex has been the fifty-five-foot figure in the middle of the fairgrounds. Texans swap the story of waiting under that figure for the rest of a group. That wait is one we share as Texans.
The wait sends us back to a practical question on this page. Which name should the payer print. The fifty-five-foot figure does not choose between the name on the truck and the name on the return. The return does.
If the group is still waiting and the form is still blank, the blank form is the errand. A story about the fairgrounds can ride along in the note. The name we need is the one that will file.
A line that smells better than it moves.
Deep Ellum's Pecan Lodge is the barbecue room people queue for. Texans trade stories about a line that smells better than it moves. We are not standing in that queue this week.
Line 1 wants the same order of patience. The filer's name goes ahead of the name painted on the truck, even when the invoice has used the truck name all year and the payer would rather type what the sign says.
Patience here is reading the return before anyone prints. A Texas owner can do that reading at the kitchen table. We can point at the line on the video. The pen stays with the person the form names.
A nickname east of downtown.
Deep Ellum is the neighborhood east of downtown toward Exposition, named from Elm Street. Texans know it as a room with a band even if they have never stood on the sidewalk, and our office is not on that sidewalk.
A nickname can lead while the map uses another word. A company can do the same. Customers say the name on the truck, and the return uses the filer's name. The form prints the tax name first.
If the note you send us uses the nickname, add the name from the return in the same sentence. We would rather see both than guess which one the payer should store.
A title people retell without a ticket.
Victory Park holds the arena where the Mavericks play, and 2011 is still the championship people retell. A Texan can enjoy that night from a screen and never have held a ticket. We can enjoy the retelling with you and still be somewhere else.
The letter on this form is a finished result, the way that title already is. Write P, S, or C only for an election that already exists. A wish for next year is not a letter the payer can store.
Partnership is P. An S corporation is S. A C corporation is C. A disregarded company leaves the LLC box empty and follows line 1. Ticking a letter the IRS has not accepted gives the payer a classification the return will not use.
Formation paper and the federal letter.
A limited liability company formed in Texas is filed at the Secretary of State. An S corporation is a federal tax choice, not a second kind of company formed in Texas. The certificate on the wall and the letter from the IRS are allowed to disagree.
The certificate of formation is 300 dollars. The company needs a registered agent at a street address where papers can be handed to a person during the day. The company cannot be its own agent. Neither of those state facts is the federal letter, and neither of them chooses the box.
Owners often prefer the state label because that is the name on the certificate. The form reports the tax classification anyway. Pretending the two papers are one document is how a false box gets signed.
The report due on 15 May.
Comptroller publications for franchise reports covering 2026 and 2027 withhold tax until receipts clear 2,650,000 dollars, then apply 0.375 percent to retail and wholesale goods and 0.75 percent to every other activity, with 15 May as the due date.
Limited liability companies and S corporations both file that report. An IRS letter accepting an S election changes the federal return and leaves the state filing untouched. Those books have to feed the report. The paper a customer is holding does not.
Federal acceptance of the election does not retire the franchise report the Comptroller still wants. Instructions for the 2026 report and the 2027 report keep the same threshold, the same two rates, and the same May date. We print them here only because that office prints them, and we name the Comptroller in the same sentence.
What the fee letter still looks at.
Open months, the bank accounts in play, and whether this year also holds a franchise report, a stack of vendor forms, and a return are what the letter looks at before it names a fee.
A published average would be a story about a stranger's shop, and this page leaves that number off. Price and scope live only in the engagement letter. Work the letter never named is priced before the file opens.
If the May report and the payer's form are both in the stack, say so in the note. They are two jobs. The fee follows the jobs you actually have, not a guess copied from a year when the receipts sat under the threshold.
A deck over the freeway.
Downtown, Klyde Warren Park is the deck laid over the freeway, open from early morning until late. Texans like that a freeway was given back to people on foot, and our office is not on that deck.
A surface that hides the road is a nice park and a bad habit with numbers. The company's EIN does not hide under the owner's name. The form carries the number the return uses, and the other number stays with the bank and the state.
While the company is disregarded, that number is the owner's social security number or the owner's own EIN. The company's EIN waits. A Texas owner who already handed the company number to a payer last spring replaces the form. The park does not sort the two numbers, and neither does the freeway under it.
The name that has to act.
Southwest still keeps a headquarters at Love Field, the close-in airport Dallas uses for short hops. Texans recognize that field from the cabin window. We work from our own office and never pretend a gate there is ours.
The boarding pass and the form share one rule. The name printed on the paper is the person who has to act. We can sit on a screen and point at the line. The pen stays there, whether you are at a kitchen table in Dallas or in a shop on the other side of the state.
We do not sign the form. If you know the box is wrong, do not sign that box. A payment waiting at the other end of a short hop is not a reason to certify a line the return will contradict.
A town that kept its old name.
From 1887 until the 1903 annexation, Oak Cliff was a separate town, and people there still say the name as if the old boundary held. Texans understand a place that refuses to dissolve into the bigger map. Our office is not on that old line.
A company can be a limited liability company at the Secretary of State and something else to the IRS at the same time. The form reports the tax classification, even when the owner prefers the state label and the certificate still says limited liability company.
The old boundary is a good picture of two true names. Oak Cliff can keep the name people use. The form cannot keep a label the return has left behind. Bring both papers if you want the difference read out loud.
Three files, and a form that prepares none of them.
Forming the company and electing the tax treatment are different errands. The Secretary of State records the company. The IRS records the election. The Comptroller still wants the franchise report from the kinds of entities that owe it, including a limited liability company and an S corporation.
Across report years 2026 and 2027 the Comptroller's no-tax-due receipts figure is 2,650,000 dollars, after which retail and wholesale activity is taxed at 0.375 percent and other activity at 0.75 percent, due on 15 May. A form handed to a customer in March does nothing to prepare that report.
A March form can also be the wrong box in April if the acceptance letter has not arrived. The customer's copy does not prepare the federal return. Those calendars move only when their own forms are filed, and May does not move because a payer was satisfied in March.
The sketch that includes the state report.
The saving people hope for is employment tax on profit that is not wages, minus the cost of the extra return, the payroll provider, and the franchise report, and minus or plus the effect on the qualified business income deduction.
We will sketch whether the shape fits. We will not print a promised dollar on a public page. A year under a rough threshold often loses the sketch to the cost of the extra return, the wage setup, and the May report. A one-year spike is a weak reason to elect.
Pay that fits the work comes before any distribution. That wage is also what moves the qualified business income deduction. For a company that files in Texas, that same sketch has to leave room for the franchise report. The report does not justify a box the IRS has not accepted, and the report does not replace the wage.
A weekday a room will not drop.
Since 1918 El Fenix has served Tex-Mex in Dallas, and the downtown room is known for enchiladas on Wednesday. Texans can picture a room that refuses to drop a weekday, and we are not sitting at that table.
A payer keeps last year's form with the same stubbornness unless a new one is put in their hand. The old PDF stays in the file. We do not call the payer. You send the new paper, and January builds the information return from whichever sheet they still hold.
A new form gives them a better paper. It does not, by itself, amend an information return that already named the wrong taxpayer. That correction belongs to the payer who filed. Your new form is the evidence they need.
A nickname that outruns the city limits.
The Cowboys play in Arlington, outside the Dallas city limits, and the stadium still goes by a nickname people prefer. Texans know a nickname that outruns the map. We are not in that stadium. The office on these pages is in Dallas.
A company name on a truck can outrun the return the same way, and the form has to print the name the return uses. The nickname can stay on the truck and on line 2 when the payer needs it to find the shop.
Line 1 is still the filer. If another company owns this one and that owner is itself disregarded, keep walking until you reach an owner that files. Stopping at the first certificate because it hangs on the wall reports the income to a taxpayer who does not file it.
Heat that can hide a form.
Highs in the mid-nineties, and several days past a hundred, are the July and August pattern in Texas. Texans plan the afternoon around that stretch, and we know the heat from summers of our own.
A form you meant to fix in spring can vanish into that heat. October is cooler and also later, so send the paper before the season chooses for you. A busy July and a crowded August will swallow a form that stays on the counter.
The heat is a season, not the problem. The unsent paper is the problem. A Texas owner can send it from a cool room on a video call, and the payer does not need to know what the afternoon reached.
The oldest marathon in Texas.
December is when the Dallas Marathon, the oldest marathon in Texas, usually loops the lake. Texans know a long morning that begins before the errands, and our office is not on that course.
You still pick the time. The form is the same errand from any town in the state. A Saturday morning before the shop opens and a quiet Tuesday are both ordinary. The calendar does not ask which Texas town the envelope came from.
Bring the line that is off. If the May report is the paper that worries you, say franchise report and the year printed on it. If the payer's form is the paper, say which line. The call can hold both, and it will not staple them into one reply.
Where a Texas figure is allowed to stay.
These pages never hold a client's file. On this page, a Texas figure is written only after someone has read the form instructions and the Comptroller's own pages for the report year in question. A line a program suggests sits unused until that reading keeps it.
A figure remains only while the office that published it still publishes it, and a changed figure gets a changed sentence even when the old wording was comfortable. The 300 dollar certificate, the registered agent who must agree to serve, the 2,650,000 dollar threshold, the 0.375 percent rate, the 0.75 percent rate, and 15 May each stay only while the Secretary of State or the Comptroller still prints that figure.
Published Comptroller instructions for the 2026 franchise report, repeated for 2027, are the source of the threshold, the two rates, and the due date on this page. A certificate of formation at the Secretary of State is the source of the 300 dollars, and the company must appoint a registered agent who agrees to serve, since a company is not allowed to act as its own agent. A number we cannot tie back to that office does not earn a sentence here.
How a Texas owner starts.
Have the payer's form nearby, and the return it has to match. If the reply to an S election is missing, lead with that, because the box cannot get ahead of the letter. If the mail is from the Comptroller, say franchise report, information report, or penalty, and name the year.
The call is on video from any Texas town. The practice is in Dallas. Settling the three lines on that call carries no bill, and the notes leave with you when you hang up. A later fee, if you want the books or the return done, is whatever the letter you sign has already written down. We would rather you leave with the right three lines than stay for a meeting the form does not need.
The person who reads the payer's form with you is Steven Palmieri, in the role of Tax CFO, and the same practice answers to Entrepreneur's CFO when the month and the return stay together. The form counts what the payer already stored. The Tax CFO decides which line to send, and what can still change before the return is prepared, including whether a May report belongs in the same season.
Which Texas paper arrived
Name the payer's form, the franchise report, or both, and the year printed on the page.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.