Getting an EIN for 合同会社/株式会社

[mary7]

I called the IRS international line recently to request an EIN for my 合同会社 because I need to file either IRS Form 5471 or IRS Form 8832 and subsequently IRS Form 8858 each year and have to decide upon that pretty quickly since the business was officially designated as established by the Yokohama Legal Affairs Bureau late last year.

When I called their systems obviously don’t support Japanese characters so my options were either to go fornicate myself or give them the G.K. translation to put in the form as the Legal Business Name

I have no idea if you can do this legally.

Secondly, what is the consensus here going forward? For a single-member GK is it better to go forward with filing IRS Form 8858 and establish that the business is a “disregarded entity” for US tax purposes (and thus income I earn from the business I think would go to be reported as individual income to the IRS), or is it better to suffer through IRS Form 5471 as a foreign corporation?

Thanks in advance

 

[subaru17]

@mary7 For corporations the "My number" is not a protected secret. Therefore instead of an EIN you should be using the Japan issued corporate number as an ITN for IRS purposes. This is different from personal my numbers which have legal handling requirements and therefore the IRS does not treat them as an ITN.

 

[mary7]

@subaru17 I see, thats not what I was told. The IRS actually told me they have no way to use the corporate My Number and that it wouldn’t hurt to apply for an EIN anyway as it just apparently makes tax reporting easier.