Help with enrolling in EFTPS as a sole proprietor - EIN vs SSN question

The good news is that EFTPS is actually pretty straightforward for sole proprietors! Since you're a sole proprietor, your business is not a separate legal entity from you as an individual - this makes your tax situation simpler. You should enroll in EFTPS using the same taxpayer ID that you use to file your tax return. For most sole proprietors who file Schedule C with their personal returns, this would be your SSN. However, if you're currently using your EIN to make federal tax deposits or file returns, you should use that instead for consistency. For your situation with multiple sole proprietor businesses, you only need one EFTPS enrollment because all your businesses are reported on the same tax return (your personal 1040 with multiple Schedule Cs). When you make your estimated quarterly tax payments, you're making them based on your total expected tax liability across all your sole proprietorship income. One tip: After you enroll, it takes about a week to receive your PIN by mail, so plan ahead if you have a payment deadline coming up!

After struggling with paper payment vouchers and missing a deadline last year, I finally tried taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) and it completely changed how I handle my quarterly payments as a sole proprietor. Their system analyzed my business docs and actually recommended I use my EIN for EFTPS since I had employees. What's great is they also helped me understand how my multiple side businesses should be handled - something my previous tax preparer never explained properly. The system walked me through exactly how to set up EFTPS for my situation and even calculated my proper quarterly payment amounts based on all my income streams.

Just wanted to update after trying taxr.ai based on the suggestion above. It was actually super helpful for my EFTPS confusion! I have a photography business and a separate graphic design gig, and was totally confused about how to handle both with EFTPS. The system asked me detailed questions about both businesses, analyzed my previous tax returns, and gave me clear instructions on using my SSN for EFTPS since neither business had employees. It even helped me calculate the correct quarterly payments based on both income streams combined, which I was doing wrong before. The step-by-step EFTPS enrollment guide made the process way easier than when I tried to figure it out myself from the IRS instructions.

For anyone struggling to get answers about EFTPS enrollment or other tax questions, I had a surprisingly good experience using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) to actually speak with the IRS directly. After spending HOURS trying to get through the normal IRS phone line about my EIN/SSN question for EFTPS, Claimyr got me connected to an IRS agent in about 20 minutes. The agent confirmed I should use my EIN for EFTPS since I had already been using it for my business banking. You can see how the service works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c - basically they navigate the IRS phone system for you and call you back when they've got an agent on the line.

I have to admit I was completely wrong about Claimyr. After posting my skeptical comment, I was still stuck with my EFTPS enrollment issue (I kept getting an error when trying to enroll with my SSN even though I have an EIN too). I decided to try Claimyr as a last resort before giving up, and it actually worked exactly as described. I got a call back in about 15 minutes, and then was connected directly to an IRS representative who looked up my information and confirmed I needed to use my EIN for enrollment because it was already linked to my tax records from previous filings. The IRS agent even stayed on the line while I completed the EFTPS enrollment to make sure it went through properly. Definitely saved me a lot of frustration.

One important thing I learned when setting up EFTPS as a sole proprietor with multiple businesses - make sure your estimated payments cover your self-employment tax too, not just income tax! I made this mistake my first year and got hit with an underpayment penalty. Since all your sole proprietorships are considered together for SE tax purposes, you need to estimate your total profit across all businesses and calculate the 15.3% SE tax on that amount (subject to annual limits of course).

Does anyone know the timeframe for EFTPS enrollment? I need to make a quarterly payment due in 2 weeks but haven't enrolled yet. Is that enough time?

Just a heads up to the original poster - if you haven't been making consistent estimated tax payments before now, you might want to check if you'll face any underpayment penalties. Starting EFTPS now is great going forward, but it doesn't fix any past underpayment issues. The IRS has a "safe harbor" rule where you generally avoid penalties if you pay 100% of last year's tax liability (or 110% if your income was over $150,000) or 90% of this year's liability in timely estimated payments.

As someone who just went through this exact process last month, I can confirm that the enrollment timeline is crucial to plan for. I'd also add that when you do enroll, make sure to keep your EFTPS login credentials somewhere very secure - unlike other online accounts, you can't just reset your password easily if you forget it. One thing that helped me was setting up recurring reminders in my calendar for the quarterly due dates (January 15, April 15, June 15, and September 15) so I never miss a payment deadline again. The peace of mind from electronic payments is definitely worth the initial setup hassle! Also, Sofia, since you mentioned having multiple businesses, you might want to consider keeping separate records of which payments correspond to which business income for your own bookkeeping, even though it all goes through one EFTPS account. It makes tax prep much easier at year-end.