Take the legal name from the CP-575 or 147C, never a W-2 or W-9

The requirementstatement

The legal name must come from the IRS CP-575 confirmation letter or a 147C letter — the name on a W-2 or W-9 is not authoritative for this purpose.

Severityseverity: HighHIGHRejected by at least one carrier or provider, and a common cause of failure at the rest.
When it bitesphase: Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
What is checkedobject: brand.company_name
Where it liveslayer: BrandBRAND
How Ekas settles itdetectability: Human checkHUMAN; Only someone holding the document or making the call can settle it. Ekas tells you exactly what to look at.
What the fix involvesfailureClass: Supply evidenceTERMINAL_EVIDENCE; Needs proof only you hold: a screenshot, a recording, a scan of the form people signed.
Who requires itauthorities: TwilioHighLevel
When it appliesapplicabilityText: Applies to every 10DLC registration.

Why this rule existsrationale

A W-9 is the document a business has to hand and fills in itself, so the name on it is whatever someone typed; the CP-575 is what the IRS actually issued. They differ more often than people expect — abbreviations, a dropped "The", a payroll-system truncation — and vetting matches against the issued record. The business is not being careless here; it is using the tax document it was asked for last time.

How to fix itremediation

Find the CP-575 issued when the EIN was assigned and copy the name from it. If it has been lost, call the IRS Business & Specialty Tax Line and request a 147C letter — it is free, and it is the same authoritative name. Done when the field matches the letter, not the W-9.

A compliant exampleexample

company_name: Acme Coffee Co, LLC — as printed on the CP-575, not as typed on last year's W-9

Check this yourselfattestation

No tool can settle this one for you. Here is the check, and what wrong looks like.

Which piece of paper did this legal name come from — a CP-575 or 147C, or a W-2 or W-9?

1Ask whoever supplied the name which document they read it off.
2If the answer is a W-9, a W-2, an invoice or a bank record, go back to the CP-575 — the W-9 is a form the business filled in itself, so the name on it is whatever someone typed.
3No CP-575 on file: request a 147C from the IRS, which reads the issued name back to you.

What wrong looks like: The name on the W-9 has been shortened by a payroll system or lost a leading "The", the business has used it for years, and vetting matches against the issued record instead.

Notesnotes

Off-platform: we cannot see which document the name came from. Surfaced as the question the user has to answer themselves — "which piece of paper is this name on?" — before submitting, because it is far cheaper to check now than after a failed vet. A 147C request takes one phone call and the IRS will read the name back.

Rules you will hit next

6 other rules read brand.company_name. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.

BRD-001A legal company name is required for every entity but a sole proprietorBlockingBLOCKING BRD-003Legal name must carry its exact entity suffix as filedBlockingBLOCKING BRD-008Legal name must not carry an appended personal name or roleBlockingBLOCKING BRD-011A legal business name may back only one brand across the whole registryBlockingBLOCKING BRD-068Sole proprietor brand name must be a person, not a companyBlockingBLOCKING BRD-160Register the message sender, not the agency or platformBlockingBLOCKING

All brand rules

BRD-010 is one of 196 brand rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.