Perfect Form

Perfect Form is a nationwide entity formation, registered agent, and other corporate services.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

What does it actually take to obtain an EIN using a foreign Responsible Party?

Obtaining an EIN with a domestic Responsible Party is easy/straightforward (most of the time!), but it's when you have a foreign Responsible Party that it becomes more challenging.

Most companies you ask to help with a foreign Responsible Party EIN will tell you it takes "many weeks." After they submit your application to the IRS, you must simply wait for the IRS' letter to arrive in the mail, they tell you.

And usually the IRS' letter does take 6+ weeks to arrive.

But what those companies won't tell you is that there is almost always a way to get your EIN sooner (because it takes more work).

Here is the reality: After submitting a foreign Responsible Party EIN application (which must be done via fax), after 8 business days the IRS may issue the EIN verbally, while you wait for the letter.

Beginning 8 business days after we submit your application, we call the IRS daily until we have your EIN, which ~100% of the time is before the formal letter arrives in the mail.

The IRS is a black box, so sometimes this means we can get the EIN on day 8, but other times it's day 12 or 13.

This is what we mean when we say we provide a level of service our clients are not used to.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

We invite you to check out the case study we participated in with @ZohoCreator that examined the inefficiencies we saw in the corporate services market and how we solved them by designing a software platform that makes forming and managing entities faster and easier than it has ever been:

https://t.co/TwIsEXYhru

[Paul Formella @PaulFormella]

PSA: If you have Delaware entities you are no longer using, file dissolutions by 12/31 to avoid having to pay another's year worth of franchise taxes (e.g. $300 per LLC). Existing even one day in 2026 makes the entity liable for the full year's worth of franchise tax.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Clients that switch to us for their corporate services needs see significant cost savings in a few different areas:

1. Service fees - For example, our entity formation and Registered Agent fees are both $125, significantly less than many legacy providers in the space. Similar cost savings are experienced across our full suite of service offerings.

2. Increased ordering and data management efficiency - Many companies pay their law firms hourly to form entities and manage entity compliance. With our state/service/entity-specific intake forms that we have built after studying each state's rules and regulations in depth, we greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to submit new filings. Add to that our streamlined, intuitive client portal that makes finding historical entity data and filing evidence quick and painless, and our clients see lower legal bills when their lawyers use our services compared to the legacy providers.

3. Client portal - Our client portal is best in class, storing all pertinent entity data and historical filing evidence, providing annual compliance tracking, and allowing for easy ordering of additional services, but while other companies charge separate monthly/quarterly/yearly portal fees, we provide portal access to our clients at no additional cost. We only ever charge for services provided.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Starting October 1, 2025, Texas is introducing expedited filing options for certain filing types:

-Same-Day (must be received by noon)
-Next-Day (must be received by noon on the prior day)
-Standard Expedited (submission jumps in line all non-expedited filings)

Eligible filing types:

-Certificate of Conversion
-Certificate of Merger
-Certificate of Amendment
-Restated Certificate of Formation
-Certificate of Validation (domestic corporations only)

[Paul Formella @PaulFormella]

A significant challenge I am experiencing in the corporate services space: invoicing.

From my time as a lawyer and working with what are now competitors, I always knew there was room for improvement - inconsistent timing of invoices, billing the law firm when they asked you to bill the client, having to send multiple follow-ups to get the billing contact changed, etc.

It was very important to me that we make the invoicing process as easy and flexible on the CLIENT as possible. Most SMBs I have seen pretty clearly use whatever process is easiest for themselves.

But our approach comes with increased collections risk and increased labor.

Here's why:

-Our default is to invoice once per month (for services ordered in the previous month), but we will create invoices on shorter timelines for each client as needed (e.g. if needed for a closing). But unless specifically asked for one, we avoid one-off, inconsistently timed invoices, as they are a PITA for our institutional clients.

-We allow our institutional clients to direct us to send invoices to their end client for payment.

-We are meticulous about how we build our invoices, using custom descriptions often, all in an effort to minimize the potential for confusion about what the client is being charged for.

The first results in a longer cash conversion cycle. The second results in more time spent chasing payment. The third (and all 3 really) results in more time spent creating invoices.

It's hard to measure, but I THINK our approach is paying off. We have converted customers from other providers specifically because of invoicing issues (and loving how we approach invoicing). But it's a lot of work.

One of my emerging themes as an entrepreneur is to bend over backwards to give the customer what they want. Brute force it if you have to, I tell myself, and only after the client is satisfied with the workflow/process, figure out how to make it more efficient/automate it.

I think a lot of business owners do it the other way around, and that's probably a safer bet, but I don't like operating that way. I think my mindset will slow our growth, but I think I'm ok with that. The bigger risk, in my mind, is trying to avoid "becoming all things to all people." But I focus on that more in the context of the services we provide in the first place, rather than HOW we provide the services we do.

I think there is a really good opportunity for an "invoicing consulting" business. Learn the ins and outs of every single invoicing tool/process out there, and then help companies make their invoicing process more efficient (and preferably, while at the same time making it easier on the client too).

I would be curious to hear from others, both customers and business owners, what your experience has been like with invoicing, where your pain points are, and (for customers) how impactful invoicing issues are on the vendors you choose to use.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Our co-founder @PaulFormella recently had the opportunity to join North Carolina's @WSICnews to discuss his journey to co-founding Perfect Form and how Perfect Form aims to be a best-in-class corporate services provider in both North Carolina and across the U.S. Check out the segment here:

https://t.co/j3U3XBamFu

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

We are excited to announce the launch of our fully redesigned website and software platform and invite you to check it out at https://t.co/IPq92FWBGw. We would love to hear your feedback!

We are a full-suite corporate services company, providing compliance-related services nationwide that include:

-Entity Formation
-Registered Agent
-Foreign Qualification
-Annual Reporting
-Numerous other related services

Every service we offer is designed to optimize for our clients’ speed and efficiency. We believe that full-suite entity management has never been easier or less time consuming. Some features of our platform:

-Service/State/Entity Type-specific intake forms that have been meticulously designed for simplicity
-Access and manage all of your entity data via a straightforward, intuitive portal
-Easily track compliance requirements and deadlines
-Best-in-class data security, including SOC 1 & 2 and ISO/IEC 27001 certified

What we are most proud of is that nothing about our new platform is a source of revenue for us - clients continue to pay only for services ordered (and those prices are not changing as a result of this roll-out).

If you have feedback, questions, or are interested in a live demo of our institutional client portal, we would love to hear from you: [email protected] | [phone]

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Following yesterday's order in Smith that once again made CTA filings required, FinCEN has published a statement that sets a new filing deadline for the vast majority of reporting companies of March 21, 2025.

This new deadline applies to all pre-2024 entities, entities created in 2024 and 2025, and entities needing to file updated and/or corrected BOI reports. Entities that have a later deadline under a different provision of the reporting rule or a previous update (e.g. entities created within 30 days of 3/21, and entities subject to disaster relief extensions) keep their later deadline.

And remember that going forward, newly formed entities have 30 days to file from the date of formation, and 30 days to update existing reports from the date the change in reporting information occurs.

FinCEN does note that it will continue to assess its options to further modify deadlines and intends to initiate a process this year to revise the reporting rule, all in an effort to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses. Depending on how significant their proposed changes are, they may need to go through an approval process including a comment period.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

CTA Update: The district court in Smith has granted the government's motion to stay the previously issued nationwide pause of the CTA, meaning CTA filings are once again legally required.

The key question now becomes what the new filing deadlines will be. The House has passed a bill to extend the deadline for pre-2024 entities to 1/1/26* that now sits with the Senate, and we know FinCEN is contemplating changes to the reporting rule, so there are a few different factors at play that could influence what the new filing deadlines look like.

*Some read the bill the House has passed to simply give Treasury the discretion to extend the pre-2024 entities filing deadline to any date but no later than 1/1/26. That is not how I read it, but I acknowledge that the bill is not abundantly clear and my read could be wrong.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Latest on the CTA: The District Court in Smith has given the plaintiffs until this Friday, 2/14, to respond to the Government's motion to stay pending appeal.

It is hard to imagine a good reason why the Smith nationwide pause of the CTA should remain in effect, given that the Supreme Court recently lifted what is substantively an identical nationwide pause in Top Cop Shop, but the plaintiffs will surely try to craft some good arguments.

It will then be interesting to see how the district court rules, along with their explanation (particularly if they side with the plaintiffs, again because there seemingly is no good reason to keep the Smith nationwide stay in effect after what SCOTUS ruled in Top Cop Shop).

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Our co-founder @PaulFormella had the pleasure of joining the Community Associations Institute's "Community Matters" podcast to discuss the Corporate Transparency Act, including the requirements, deadlines, penalties for noncompliance and more.

Reach out to us at Perfect Form if you would like to discuss our CTA compliance service. We service businesses of all sizes, from individual business owners to the largest law firms. Our platform is well suited to cater to a wide variety of CTA compliance needs and we would love to serve your business or clients!

https://t.co/vhbgV4YKSf

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

He is right you know...

[Stephen Richer @stephen_richer]

‼️ ‼️ Approximately 28 million LLCs and corporations still need to file their Corporate Transparency Act disclosures with FinCEN before the end of the calendar year. ‼️‼️

If you need help with this, or information about this NEW requirement, let me know, and I'll connect you with my law school classmate @PaulFormella who, together with @jaredluke, created Perfect Form (https://t.co/6H8AJyvx91) in part to help with this new requirement.

Let me know!

Note 1: This new requirement applies to LLCs and Corporations in all 50 states and is the result of a new federal law (the "Corporate Transparency Act"), requiring the disclosure of beneficial owners, aimed at preventing "money laundering, the financing of terrorism, proliferation financing, serious tax fraud, human and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, piracy, securities fraud, financial fraud, and acts of foreign corruption, harming the national security interests of the United States and allies of the United States."

Note 2: This is not a legal service. This is a filing service. If you need legal advice, consult your attorney.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

As part of our Corporate Transparency Act compliance service, we actively review all entity information that is submitted to us before we process the information in our software platform and file the entity's BOI Report with FinCEN.

We of course can't know whether certain information is correct or incorrect (e.g. EIN number, addresses, etc.), but even so I would estimate that around 40% (yes, almost half!) of the submissions we get contain an obvious error that we are either able to fix ourselves or that we have to go back to the client for clarification on.

Some examples of common errors we see:

-Providing middle initials instead of full middle names
-Information on ID documents not matching up with information provided elsewhere (e.g. no middle name reported but ID doc includes one)
-Reporting incorrect Company Applicants (e.g. when we know it was a law firm-run deal and the law firm coordinated entity formation, yet the reported CAs are only individuals at the Company)
-Reporting a business address for a Company Applicant when it's obvious the individual does not work in corporate formation

As a law firm or CPA, I would keep this in mind when recommending to your clients how they should go about handling CTA compliance (whether that be recommending they do it themselves or sending them to a compliance service provider that is hands-off (as most are)). Even if the client understands well the nuances of CTA reporting, typos and other common errors happen a lot and understandably so - the client wants to check the CTA compliance box as quickly as they can and get back to their core business. So having a second set of eyes can be helpful.

It is in that same vein why part of our service also includes educating/consulting with clients regarding the information required to be reported under the CTA, if they are unsure. We don't provide legal advice, but we can get the vast majority of our clients the information they need without going to that extent. For only the most complex cases do we have to refer clients back to counsel.

We do all of this while continuing to charge our clients solely on a per filing basis. No consulting, onboarding, platform, or other miscellaneous fees.

Does this make our business model more labor intensive and less scalable? Of course. That's why most others don't do it. But from everything we can tell, this is what clients need in order for reporting to be done correctly, and our focus first and foremost is on providing clients value. We are playing the long game of building client trust and establishing strong relationships, so clients come back to us for all of their corporate services needs.

[MarkVega @markvega]

TAILORED STRATEGIES FOR BOIR COMPLIANCE: With the BOIR filing deadline on the horizon, tailored solutions are more important than ever. Incite Law Group helps clients develop bespoke strategies for compliance for outdated and dormant companies. Meet all requirements, avoid penalties. or one-offs or bulk processing go directly to @PerfectFormCo. Their system is smooth, easier than https://t.co/WDQtGRdfnl and designed to get the filings done. WHEN IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE, START HERE: https://t.co/FA4PIq5uYc

#StrategicPlanning #BOIR #ComplianceStrategy #FinCEN #CorporateTransparency #INCITELAWGROUP

[Stephen Richer @stephen_richer]

❗ ❗ Approximately 6 million LLCs and corporations still need to file their Corporate Transparency Act disclosures with FinCEN before the end of the calendar year. ❗ ❗

If you need help with this, or information about this NEW requirement, let me know, and I'll connect you with my law school classmate @PaulFormella who, together with @jaredluke, created Perfect Form (https://t.co/UE85KP68iY) in part to help with this new requirement.

Let me know!

Note 1: This new requirement applies to LLCs and Corporations in all 50 states and is the result of a new federal law (the "Corporate Transparency Act"), requiring the disclosure of beneficial owners, aimed at preventing "money laundering, the financing of terrorism, proliferation financing, serious tax fraud, human and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, piracy, securities fraud, financial fraud, and acts of foreign corruption, harming the national security interests of the United States and allies of the United States."

Note 2: This is not a legal service. This is a filing service. If you need legal advice, consult your attorney.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

One question we field from a lot of our clients is how to handle situations where their entities' Beneficial Owners (and, to a lesser extent, Company Applicants) refuse to provide their required personal information in order for the entity to be able to complete and timely file its BOI Report.

There is unfortunately no easy answer to this question, but we recommend advising your entities' holdouts of the following:

1. Compliance is legally required and refusing to comply puts the entity and its senior officers at risk of incurring non-compliance penalties, which are harsh (civil penalties of up to $591 (to be further indexed to inflation) in fines per day of continued non-compliance and criminal penalties of $10,000 in fines and up to 2 years' imprisonment).

2. Compliance is not time consuming, especially when using a service like ours. As part of our service, we are happy to educate individuals on what they need to provide, explaining that they can either provide the required information directly to us, or obtain a FinCEN ID and use that unique number instead.

3. FinCEN has made clear that they may enforce noncompliance penalties individually against those responsible for causing an entity's failure to comply, and given that noncompliance must be "willful" in order to be at risk of suffering noncompliance penalties in the first place, we expect that in these situations it will be ONLY the individuals causing an entity's noncompliance that FinCEN will look to seek enforcement actions against.

Aggregating all of the information required to complete your entity's BOI Report is oftentimes the most time consuming aspect of the compliance process. Note that as part of our service, we will take off of your plate the task of continuing to follow up with your entity's Beneficial Owners and Company Applicants until we have the information we need.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Based on the thousands of business owners we have spoken with and the filing numbers we see from FinCEN (less than 3.75 million total filings to date), a lot of people are choosing to wait until closer to the end of the year to deal with CTA compliance (esp. for their pre-2024 entities).

Word of caution on this: Our clients oftentimes underestimate the amount of time and effort that can be involved in getting the information they need from their entities' various beneficial owners before they're able to file. Especially for those with large numbers of entities/entities with many BOs, we recommend at the very least starting to aggregate the information you will need to file, even if you wait to actually file.

At Perfect Form, part of the value we provide is assistance with information gathering, where your various beneficial owners can provide their necessary information directly to us. Reach out to us ([email protected]; [phone]) if you would like to have a conversation about how we can make CTA compliance faster and more efficient for your organization.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Update: FinCEN has fixed its filing platform such that it no longer rejects filings simply because an EIN has been used that has been used in at least 3 previous filings.

[Perfect Form @PerfectFormCo]

Today, FinCEN updated its FAQs. The main takeaway:

Each reporting company is required to provide a Tax Identification Number as part of its BOI Report filing, which raised the following question - for entities disregarded for tax purposes that haven't otherwise needed an EIN and thus use their parent entity's, are they required to go get an EIN simply for BOI reporting purposes?

FinCEN has clarified that the answer is "No," and that the parent's EIN may be used in the disregarded entity's BOI Report filing.

This should come as a huge sigh of relief to organizations with many disregarded entities that are not exempt from filing, as the requirement to obtain an EIN for all would have, in many cases, been a very burdensome one.

Note, however, that FinCEN continues to reject filings that use an EIN that has already been used in 3 previous filings.

For the full text of FinCEN's published FAQs and its responses, please see below:
https://t.co/kr638Kd2RZ