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I've registered my business as a single-member LLC in Ohio, and now I'm applying for an EIN so I can open a bank account for the business. In the online application, it asks if I will be paying employees and withholding money for taxes in the next 12 months. It also asks when is the first date that wages or annuities will be paid. This leads me to two problems:

1) I'm not exactly sure when I will start paying my employees because I don't have a set date of "opening our doors". It will probably be within the next 12 months, but I don't know for sure, and I don't know which month will be our opening month (when I start paying employees).

2) During the "startup" months when we are not open and I am not paying employees, I have set aside a small amount of money to pay myself for the work I'll be doing to prepare the business to be opened. In other words, I'll be working so much on getting the new business started that I won't have time for another job and will have no other source of income. Does this count as "paying my employees" if I'm paying myself? As the only member of the LLC, will I be paid as an employee? Will I fill out a W-2 for myself, or will I be self-employed and fill out a 1099?

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As the LLC managing member you're not required to pay yourself a salary. You will be self employed, and fill Schedule C (if its a single member LLC not taxed as a corporation) or form 1065 (if its a multi-member LLC not taxed as a corporation).

You can probably chose another reason for requesting EIN now, if its not because you have or going to have employees any time soon. IIRC they have a specific reason "required to open a bank account" or something like that.

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They do have a "banking" reason for obtaining an EIN, but you still have to tell them whether or not you expect to have employees within the next twelve months. If you select yes, then you have to specify the first month that you'll be paying them. So even though I selected a different reason for applying (banking purposes), they still ask the same questions. – NigeltheBold Jun 20 '12 at 22:45
@NigeltheBold these are estimates. If you don't know if you're going to have employees - you can select "no" or "n/a" for the date. – littleadv Jun 20 '12 at 22:54
I know I will have employees, I just don't know when they will start working/being paid. I will just use estimates for the dates I suppose. I just didn't want to mess anything up! Thanks for the help though. – NigeltheBold Jun 20 '12 at 23:00

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