The short answer is “none.”
The Registered Agent has no position within the company, and no power. The Registered Agent’s job is to forward service of process to a Company’s designee, whether a Manager, Owners, Board or other authorized representative of the company.
Therefore, a Registered Agent cannot enter into a contract on behalf of the company.
A Registered Agent cannot issue “powers of attorney”.
A Registered Agent cannot even indicate who owns a company.
This is not to say that someone WITH power in a company, such as an owner, president, secretary or even attorney-in-fact, can also be the Registered Agent for the company. In such instances, the person wielding power on behalf of the company is doing so not as the company’s Registered Agent, but because of some other office or position within the company.
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Can a registered agent sign a W9 on behalf of an LLC?
No. A Registered Agent has no power in a company and is therefore not an “authorized agent” on behalf of the company.
With that said, a person can certainly have multiple roles within a company, including being a Registered Agent. This means, being a Registered Agent doesn’t preclude being other things to a company, whether an Officer, Manager or Authorized Agent (for example). A person acting as a Registered Agent has no powers.
The IRS says, “A valid Form W-9, or a substitute form, must contain the payee’s name and TIN and be signed and dated under penalties of perjury by the payee or a person authorized to sign for the payee.” A Registered Agent is not, in of itself, a person authorized to sign for the payee. If you want to empower your Registered Agent to do more for the company, you can certainly do that, but they would be acting on behalf of the company in some other way.
I hope that makes sense. Larry.