Vendor Names, W-9s, and 1099s

 We require a W-9 for all new vendor setups. The W-9 has two name fields, the first is the "Name as shown on your income tax return", the second is "Business name, if different from above".

Our buyers look for the business name of a vendor when they go to create a purchase order, so we put the name from the second line of the W-9 on the header of the vendor record (when it is supplied).

When we filed our 1099s, we received notice from the IRS that the many Tax IDs were incorrect, since they did not match the "tax return name". We've been told by the IRS that there is a fine for a subsequent filing of the same incorrect name/Tax ID number.