Answer:
Answer by John Burnett:If the business in question is a sole proprietorship, you should aggregate deposits made to the business account with those made to the individual owner's account, regardless of the TIN recorded on your records for the business account (the IRS prefers that the TIN recorded is the SSN of the individual, but using an EIN is acceptable). That is because a sole proprietorship business does not have a separate legal identity from its owner.
If, on the other hand, the business is owned by an LLC, LLP, partnership, corporation or other form of legal entity (even if an LLC is able to use its sole member's SSN as its TIN), you should not combine its deposits with those of the business's owner unless, as you have suggested, the deposits are brought in by the same person.
Answer:
Answer by Ken Golliher:It depends on the ownership of the business account. If deposits of cash are made to an individual's personal account and also to individual's business account, i.e. a sole proprietorship, they would be subject to aggregation and reporting. In that instance, both deposits were "on behalf of the same person." Regardless of any business purpose, the sole proprietorship account belongs to the individual just like the personal account does.
If the second account was an entity account; e.g. a corporation, then there would be no aggregation of the deposits to the individual's and the entity's accounts unless the deposits were made by the same person. Even if the individual is the sole owner of the corporation, it is still a separate "person" as defined in BSA.
First published on BankersOnline.com 7/10/06
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