Welcome to The New Reality-Government Run Everything

Yesterday, I needed to get a couple of EIN‘s for some things I am doing.  I logged into the IRS website.  I searched for EIN in their search box.  I got to a page which told me a bunch of gobbleygook about EINs.  Tip to the IRS, have a link directly to the EIN page so that people can click it and go right there.

I couldn’t find a phone number to call them, and you can’t go to an IRS office to try and get an EIN in person.  Fortunately, the accountant that is helping me, Pat Cosentino, emailed me the number.  For your purposes it’s 1-800-829-4933.  The link to the website is https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp.

When I telephoned, I started jumping through hoops.  Dial 1 for this, etc.  I finally got to a live person who identified them self by name, then a number.  She asked me a couple of questions, then transferred me to another department.  I was on hold twenty minutes.  Eventually, another IRS employee picked up the call.  She identified herself by name and number.

I relayed to her my problem with getting an EIN via the IRS website.  Always got this message: https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/technical-difficulties.jsp.  We began to do it over the phone.  I had two EIN’s to get for two separate businesses.  Unfortunately, due to IRS regulations you can only get one EIN at a time.  I would have to telephone them again to try and set up the next business.  That meant a minimum of another half hour on the phone.

We went through the process and she was very cordial.  However, it took time.  There were the inevitable misunderstandings that take place when doing a process like this over the phone.  Eventually, we got it done.  I can set up the bank account for one of the LLC‘s.

The reason I highlight this is because we have just authorized the takeover of our medical system.  The government run health care system will be administered in the same way.  If you think the waits are interminable in other federal agencies, wait until you try to get something done in the health care system.

Think about it economically.  When you call the IRS and get an EIN number, at least the federal government has a vested interest in making the process as painless as possible.  They might generate some revenue from it via taxes.  Health care isn’t going to be a revenue generator for them, simply a budget outlay.  Expenses generally don’t get entities as fired up as revenue.  Big government doesn’t have competition, so it doesn’t have to respond to customers.

Just sayin’.  Hope the IRS fixes their site.  America could use business formation to grow.

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