Re: Linked Through Merchant/Authorize.net Accounts? Quote:
Originally Posted by odinnite I was under the impression that the IRS charged a fee for the EIN on top of the LLC fee (I already have a new LLC filed in Florida, which cost about $200.
Hmm I wonder if its too late for this account now that I linked my old merchant gateway. Should I try to switch in a new merchant account? Or should I save the new merhcant account for a fresh ebay account because switching it in now would taint the new merchant account (sorry if that was convoluted). | As long as you're applying for and obtaining EIN's directly from IRS.gov there's no fees involved for getting an EIN. If you use one of the hundreds of 3rd party websites to get an EIN then there's a fee. All those services do is take the information you provide and get a free EIN from IRS.gov.
It sounds like you've already linked your merchant account to a 2nd eBay account. If that's the case your days are probably numbered. It will only be a matter of time before the two eBay's are linked.
To use a merchant account on eBay you're required to have both a merchant account and an online payment gateway. You tell your payment gateway where to send payments by linking it to your merchant account. I was trying to say you might be able to safely use the same merchant account on two eBay's by using a different payment gateway on the 2nd eBay account.
To give you an example, my merchant account is with TSYS and I use Auth.net as my payment gateway. The API Key from my Auth.net account was entered into eBay for me to start accepting payments through my merchant account. So I gave eBay information about my payment gateway but they know nothing about my actual merchant account. I could possibly open an account with one of the other eBay-approved payment gateways (the 3 are Auth.net, Cybersource, and Payflow), link my merchant account to it, and then link the new gateway to a 2nd eBay.
So account 1 would be : Merchant account through TSYS linked to Auth.net payment gateway, with Auth.net being attached to eBay
And account 2 would be : Merchant account through TSYS linked to Cybersource payment gateway, with Cybersource being attached to eBay.
You would have two different API keys for the same EIN since you would be using two unique payment gateways, with payments from both being fed into your one merchant account.
I hope you're able to make sense of my idea. I believe it's even more convoluted than what you were saying, lol.
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