Answers|Dictionary

Can I cancel an EIN?

EINCompliance

No. The IRS never cancels or reuses an EIN. Once one is assigned, it is that entity's permanent federal taxpayer number, whether or not the business ever opens a bank account or files a return. What you can do is ask the IRS to close the business account attached to it, which tells them not to expect filings from a company that never got going.

To close the account, send the IRS a letter with the entity's EIN, its full legal name, its address, the reason you want the account closed and, if you still have it, the CP 575 confirmation notice. The IRS's own page on closing a business account currently lists two addresses for it: Internal Revenue Service, MS 6055, Kansas City, MO 64108, or Internal Revenue Service, MS 6273, Ogden, UT 84201. Check that page before you post, because the IRS moves these. There is no form and no fee.

Clear the decks first

If the company ever made a tax payment, owes tax, or received a notice asking it to file a return, the IRS will not close the account until every outstanding return is filed and every balance paid. Closing the account is the last step in winding a company down, after the state dissolution, not a way of skipping it.

Applied by mistake, or twice?

This happens more than you would think, usually because someone applied online while a formation service was also applying on their behalf. Use the number the company has already given its bank, and write to close the other. If the business simply never launched, the unused EIN costs nothing by itself. What can still produce a letter is the entity behind it: a corporation or partnership has a return to file even for a year in which nothing happened, and that is what closing the account switches off.

Written by the lawyers who built Arabella. This is legal information, not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not make us your lawyers. For a real dispute or a high-stakes decision, talk to a licensed attorney. More questions.