The owner had operated his jewelry storefront for two years as one trade name, but his original Articles of Organization had been filed under a misspelled legal name — a typo the prior preparer never caught. The IRS had issued the EIN under a third variant, MassTaxConnect held a fourth, and the merchant processor was about to suspend his account because the bank's KYC review surfaced the mismatch. Every agency held a different official name for the same business, and none of them matched his signage, invoices, or supplier purchase orders.
We requested certified copies of the original Articles of Organization from the MA Secretary of the Commonwealth and pulled the EIN assignment letter (CP-575) so we could see exactly what name each agency had on record. Without all four spellings side-by-side, you can't fix the chain in the right order.
Massachusetts has to be the anchor — every other agency takes its lead from the SOC record. We filed Articles of Amendment correcting the legal name, paid the $100 filing fee, and got the new Certificate of Amendment in 7 business days.
The IRS does not accept name changes by phone for LLCs taxed as disregarded entities — it has to be a signed letter on file with the Articles of Amendment attached. We drafted the request, included the new SOC certificate, and sent it certified mail to the IRS service center that issued the original EIN.
Once the SOC record was clean, we logged into MassTaxConnect, updated the registered legal name on the sales-tax account, and printed the corrected ST-1 confirmation. The account number stays the same — only the name on it changes.
We packaged the new SOC certificate, the IRS 147C response, and the MassTaxConnect confirmation into a single PDF with a cover letter explaining the sequence, and sent it directly to the merchant processor's compliance officer. The freeze was lifted the same week.
Six weeks from engagement to fully reconciled. The merchant account was never actually frozen — the threat letter was withdrawn after the bank received our compliance package. Going forward, his Articles, EIN letter, MassTaxConnect registration, and bank KYC file all show the same legal name, which means his next financing application, vendor onboarding, or insurance underwriting won't trigger another KYC mismatch. He kept the storefront open every day of the engagement.
Start your business the right way — from day one.