Should You Pay to Get an EIN?

Should you pay for something that is free?

This is the time of year that parents need an identification number from their family child care provider so they can claim their child care tax credit.

As a child care providers you can give parents your Social Security Number or an Employer Identification Number (EIN). I have strongly recommended that family child care providers get their own EIN to avoid identity theft problems.

I’ve written an article about how to get your EIN from the IRS. It’s free. To apply for your EIN go directly to the IRS website.

However, there are a number of companies offering to obtain an EIN for you for a fee ranging from $25 to $149. These companies include Tax Filing Forms, GovSimplified, IRS-EIN-Tax, GovFilingsOnline and others. If you Google "IRS EIN" you will see these companies and more with "irs" listed as part of their web address. This is very deceptive because they make it seem like they are connected with the IRS.

What do you get for your money? One service will send you the IRS form and instructions for $25. You can get the form and instructions online at www.irs.gov.

Another service says they provide lifetime customer support, will safely store your EIN and help you recover your number if it’s lost.

Lifetime support for what? If you lose your EIN number you can call the IRS and get it back, no problem.

These companies say they can save you time in getting your EIN. Since it takes about fifteen minutes to get it online from the IRS, I think this is a waste of your money. Normally when I write about companies and services I include a link to their websites, but for this article I won’t. It’s not worth your time or money.

Thanks to Debbie Moore for alerting me to this.

Tom Copeland – www.tomcopelandblog.com

Image credit: https://www.chcfinc.org/clearinghouse/establish-your-program/employer-identification-number-ein/