Bank Account Requirements

When you go in to open a checking account, first thing like we talked about in one video is, it is a business account so you go in and you say, “I want to open a business account.” Now there’s going to be three items you’re going to need with you:

One is, since it’s an LLC, you need some sort of identification of the LLC, and that’s called the Articles of Organization. Think about it: If you were a person going in there, you need like a birth certificate, some sort of ID. So, the articles prove that in that state that we created the LLC, that it was actually created and it’s in good standing, it’s still there. So it’s just like an identification and that it’s still in good standing. There, you show them that, the Articles of Organization.

The second thing is, everybody opening an account needs like a social security number, well a business needs their “social security number” which is a tax ID number; A TIN or an EIN. Basically that just lets the IRS know that this LLC is tied to an IRA and not to expect a tax return, that this is going to be a disregarded entity, there won’t be a tax return coming and it won’t be treated like a normal company because it’s owned by an IRA. So, you’ll give them the tax ID number. It’s just a number you’ll be able to hand them that, and they’ll go, “Oh, that’s great, thank you!”

Then finally, you are not the owner of that account. You don’t own that LLC account; the IRA owns it and a trustee signs for the IRA. So what the trustee has done is written up an agreement on how the company will be operating, and you sign it as manager agreeing to the agreement; and it’s called the Operating Agreement. And so in that, it gives all this authority to the manager by the owner and the owner’s an IRA and of course, IRAs can’t think or talk or write, so it’s a trustee that gives you all that authority. That’s in the operating agreement.

So, before the banker can allow you to open an account and act on behalf of the company, it needs some sort of written permission, and that’s when operating agreement is; it’s like a limited power of attorney. You don’t have to ask anybody. You have written permission, but it’s limited in the agreement. You know, In our agreements they’re as broad as we can possibly make them according to the law. But there are some things you are limited that you can’t do. For example, dealing with yourself or your family.

So those are the three things that you need. Then, you’ll need to make a little deposit normally so that they can wire money into an account and that can be done personally from you and then the first check that you write should come back to you as manager; as replacement reimbursement for start up funds for the LLC.

And that’s how you open a bank account for a checkbook IRA.