IP, W8-BEN, SWIFT, Alfa and Russian beneficiary name?

Question

Freelance

Good afternoon!
The situation is as follows:
- IP
- account in Alfa-Bank
- a direct contract with a company from the USA
Alfa-Bank requires the counterparty to indicate "IP IVANOV IVAN IVANOVICH", which is just a stupid transliteration of IP IVANOV IVAN IVANOVICH. (Not real name of course)
The client (large company) cannot make a transfer until I complete the W8-BEN form for the IRS.
I filled it out, but due to ignorance, it indicated "Private Entrepreneur Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich" The
IRS (Am. Tax) says that this is not Individual and requires you to fill out W8-BEN-E (form for companies).
But:
- the form for companies is hellishly complicated
- because I am not really a company, in the future there may be a fine
The client suggests specifying the Beneficiary Name and Name in W8-BEN as simply IVANOV IVAN IVANOVICH.
Alpha commented that in this case, the payment will not automatically fall into the account. They definitely need that stupid IP prefix. In principle, the payment will not be lost, but there will be fuss about linking in manual mode.
As a result, the questions are as follows:
- Are there individual entrepreneurs here who are Alfa-Bank clients and have encountered this?
- How will the IRS treat the IP prefix? And is it necessary that in the invoice / transfer Beneficiary Name and Name in the tax form match letter by letter?

Answer 1

Don't bother with this IP prefix. This is highly desirable, but not required. I made translations for myself, where the Beneficiary Name was simply firstName lastName. They called from Alfa-Bank, asked me to send them a letter through the Internet bank, something like asking them to credit the money. funds in the amount of such and such to my transit account.
And anyway, why do you need to fill out something for the US tax? You, as I understand it, are a tax resident of the Russian Federation, you have your own tax office :) Send that tax office in the forest

Answer 2

As far as I know, this issue cannot be resolved there. W8-BEN is a form for physicists who receive income in the United States, do not have the right to work, and are subject to tax treaty. In essence, this is your statement that you do not need to withhold tax, since an agreement has been signed to avoid double taxation, and you are going to pay tax in your homeland. No individual entrepreneurs in this form will work, this is just a conversation about an individual paying (or not paying) stupid personal income tax in the states.
The only thing left to do is play here. I didn’t try to receive an individual entrepreneur, but everything goes quite normally for legal entities, especially if there is a payment identifier on the other side. But even without it - everything is quite normal, according to the letter. If the topic is long-term - perhaps it makes sense to take care of considering a more loyal bank. Personally, I generally prefer to choose a bank for business not by external show-offs and 100,500 branches, but by the presence of good friends both upstairs and behind the counter. Then things get a lot easier...
About "match letter by letter" - no, in the states it is not necessary. Moreover, very often this rule is violated, in the accompanying you can at least not write anything at all, pay at all from the wrong office and to the wrong one, and "for a third." It often happens that in mutual settlements between companies A and B, a payment from company C to D is taken into account. Everything is much more liberal there than with us. BUT!!! But if the IRS pays attention to this joke, and starts to understand the difference between full name and IP full name, your Amer counterparty may be in trouble. At least - in the form of payment of lawyers for the rejection of IRS requests / claims. And if the counterparty is already aware of such an opportunity, nothing prevents him from resting and refusing to take risks.
Here, rather, the question is for our banks - how potentially ambush is for them: to accept a payment to the correct account number with an inaccurate recipient. SWIFT generally, theoretically, does not require an account number - only a name and address. The number is required only if the recipient has several accounts in this bank.

Answer 3

The counterparty somehow dealt with the IRS, sent IP FIO, everything got through.
Thanks to all!