Change from corp adsense to private adsense

I had adsense under my scorp but want to move to adsense as a sole prop

[cmendla]

Hi

Sorry, I know this has been discussed here before but I want to get a fresh take on this type of situation.

I was running adsense using the ein of my s-corp. I am going to be dissolving the scorp soon. I work out of my home so I use the same IP for the business that I would use for personal use.

I want to abandon the old adsense account totally mainly to keep things clean paperwork wise with the dissolution of the scorp.


1. Do I need to cancel the old scorp adsense account before I begin setting up a new personal adsense account?

2. At some point I will probably establish an LLC. Can I simply change the EIN from my SSN to an LLC Ein at that point?

3. Could I simply establish a personal adsense acount without doing anything with the corp account? (My guess is that this might not be a good idea)


FWIW - I never had any problems with my old adsense account.. no letters from google etc.

thanks

chris

[cmendla]

I think I have my answer but would still appreciate any thoughts.. From adsense "Once your application has been submitted, you can't change your account type. Should you ever need to select a new account type, you need to close your current account and open a new account with your updated information."

That seems to indicate that I have to close my old account and then open a new account.

[magician]

You should prefer keeping your old adsense account as you don't have to change the ad code on your websites and your account will keep its history. (I am not sure if google rewards trusted adsense publishers in anyway but it might be a possibility).

I would suggest you to reach out to adsense support. They might change your account type.

[netmeg]

I dunno; I went the other way (private account to business account) and they did make me change it, but I suffered no ill effect from it. I never even shut down the old one, so I can still have access to the old reports (but I have to combine them for lifetime metrics, if for some reason I want them)

[cmendla]

@magician - I want to create some 'space' between the corporate account and a new personal account because of issues with shutting down the corp. I don't anticipate problems but I want things to go as smoothly as possible. From what I read they can't change the type but I would prefer to have a different account anyway.

@netmeg. I though that adsense frowned on people having two accounts even if it was corp/private. However, from what you said, that might not be an issue.

I think I'm going to probably just open up a personal account and see what happens with that. I'll check the stats on the corp account just to make sure that there aren't any ads out there getting clicks (I have some ads on my blogger blog tied to the old account)

[netmeg]

I'm not using the other account; it's just siiting there (actually it's got $98 in it; I should at least find a way to get the final $2 so I can get the money) and there's no active ads. They haven't complained so ar.

[webcentric]

@netmeg Actually, if you close the old account, Google will deposit that $98 in your bank account (if the bank account it still exists) as a closing transaction. Of course, I get that you want the reports. You can always download your data to your local system so you'll have it for the future but you know that. Not quite the same as having Adsense Reports on hand but useable in some fashion.

[webcentric]

And here's a quick word to the wise...If

1. You plan on closing a bank account linked to an Adsense account
2 And you're planning on closing the Adsense account.
3. And the Adsense account has earnings in it that you want to receive but the amount is less that the payment threshold

Close the Adsense account before you close the bank account! This will give Google the ability to pay you. If the bank account doesn't exist, you'll need to provide new bank info before closing the Adsense account. If you're shutting down a company for example, you probably won't be able to supply another bank account and the money will be lost to you.

How do I know this? Because it happened to me. I really thought I would never get paid so I just cancelled that particular Adsense account with 25 bucks in it I think. After I closed the Adsense account, there was a message telling me that amount would be deposited in my bank account (which by then, didn't exist). So Google has my money and they used it to make sure my sites don't show up in the SERPS it seems. Or maybe I paid for somebody to test Chrome for a half an hour. Who knows? Maybe this info will be useful to someone in the future. If so, I'm happy to have shared.

[Swanny007]

When I switched from a personal account to corporate, all I did was update the payee name and bank account. Honestly I do not see any compelling reason to change the account type (i.e. setup a new account). I did that over 2 years ago and have not had a single problem. Payments now go to my corp account.

[netmeg]

Thanks; yah I know that. I could close it down, I'm just not going to until they say something.

[edited by: netmeg at 3:45 pm (utc) on Apr 9, 2015]

[webcentric]

When I switched from a personal account to corporate, all I did was update the payee name and bank account. Honestly I do not see any compelling reason to change the account type (i.e. setup a new account). I did that over 2 years ago and have not had a single problem. Payments now go to my corp account.

Hmm. Did you fill out new tax information or does Google think your corporation is an individual? This doesn't sound like a very sound idea (at least for people and company's in the US).

[webcentric]

Thanks; yah I know that. I could close it down, I'm just not going to until they say something.

Which could be never. Had an inactive account for over 5 years and they never said anything. Well, except that I might want to switch from text-only to text and display ads. ;)

[Swanny007]

Hmm. Did you fill out new tax information or does Google think your corporation is an individual? This doesn't sound like a very sound idea (at least for people and company's in the US).

OK I checked my account to be sure. I can't remember exactly how I changed things other than I updated my bank account to my business account. I am not in the US and have no US operations so maybe that's why it's a non-issue for me.