Individual FEIN #

[Nashville]

Midas is the richest guy in Golddust, CO. He has the common touch and has personally made mortgage loans to a dozen or so dwellers and collects mortgage interest from them.

Midas wants to give all these mortgagees a 1098 at the end of the year, and report all of his interest income. However, in this day of identity theft, he does not want to publish his own social security #.

Can he apply for a Federal I D # to publish on the various 1098s that have to be issued? and not have to use his SS#?

[BHoffman]

I've never done it, but the destructions for form SS-4 have a place where you can check off that your entitiy is a sole proprietor.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iss4.pdf

[ChEAr$]

King Midas must have an EIN to do this, and since he IS in the business of earning money
by placing mortgages, it's schedule c activity, so an EIN is quite appropriate.