Forum

Merchant account for multiple stealths
 

Do any of you have a merchant account (like Authorize.net) and running multiple stealths? Do you have a separate merchant account for each stealth ebay? Or do you just point all stealths to your same merchant account?

Re: Merchant account for multiple stealths
 

I have a merchant account, and my gateway is through auth.net. I only use it for one account though. Linking the merchant account to multiple stealth accounts would instantly link them since you would be putting in the same auth.net API key on multiple accounts. You have to get eBay's help to finalize the merchant account integration process so they would catch on pretty quickly.

Frankly I would go out of business in a matter of weeks if I were using the merchant account on all my accounts. I switched on this one account because my Paypal got irreversibly limited and I didn't want to abandon the eBay account. The eBay account has only been getting 15-20% of the sales it did when it was still accepting Paypal since I switched it to a merchant account. Though I have to admit, it's awesome having an account which isn't reliant on Paypal.

Anyway to answer your question I use Paypal on all but one account. Linking the same merch. account to multiple stealth accounts will not work.

Re: Merchant account for multiple stealths
 

Oh I see. Thanks. The problem I'm having is that I foresee my stealth account selling around 20k a month. So if I were to sidestep the 1099 $20k a year(I'm worried because my stealth name won't match my real name regardless of being similar), I'd have to make 12 stealth Paypal accounts right? And with that I need 12 stealth ebay accounts to accompany each Paypal stealth, correct?

I talked to my cpa and she said it'll be a nightmare tax wise having so many EINs for each Paypal.

Re: Merchant account for multiple stealths
 

The IRS will not allow you to have multiple EIN numbers as a sole proprietor ...
The ONLY way to get multiple EIN numbers is have multiple LLC's