- Returns
- US federal, state and personal
- Information returns
- Form 5472 and 1099-NEC
- Catch up filing
- Routine work
- Also for
- Entities we did not form
Tax preparation, by the people who kept the books
Federal and state returns for the company and for the owners, prepared from accounts that were closed monthly rather than assembled in a hurry in March.
- Best case
- The return is a review
- Worst case
- The return is an investigation with a deadline
The return is the last five percent of the work.
A tax return is an output. If the books were reconciled and closed every month, preparing it is mostly a review, a set of judgment calls about elections and timing, and a conversation about anything unusual. If the books were not maintained, the return becomes a forensic exercise conducted under deadline, which is both more expensive and more likely to miss something.
This is the main reason we prefer to do both. When the same firm keeps the records and files the return, there is no handover, no reconciliation of two versions of the year, and no set of questions you have already answered once.
It also means the planning conversations happen while they can still change the outcome. Almost nothing useful can be done about a tax year after it has ended, which is why the planning service runs on a different calendar entirely.
What gets filed, by entity.
| Entity | Usual federal return | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Single member LLC, US owner | Schedule C with your personal return | No separate federal return for the company itself. |
| Single member LLC, foreign owner | Pro forma Form 1120 with Form 5472 | Due annually whether or not the company traded. Penalty from $25,000. |
| Multi member LLC | Form 1065, with a Schedule K-1 to each owner | Due earlier in the year than personal returns. Late filing penalties accrue per partner per month. |
| S corporation | Form 1120-S, with a Schedule K-1 to each shareholder | Requires that owner payroll actually ran during the year. |
| C corporation | Form 1120 | The company is its own taxpayer. Distributions are taxed again at the shareholder. |
| Foreign owned corporation | Form 1120 with Form 5472 | The 5472 attaches to the corporate return where a foreign person holds 25 percent or more. |
- Partnership and S corp
- March, roughly a month before personal returns
- Penalties
- Assessed per owner per month, not as a flat sum
- Extensions
- Move the filing date, never the payment date
The deadlines that catch people.
Business returns are not due on the same date as personal returns, and the earlier ones are the ones people miss because the mental calendar is set to April.
Partnership and S corporation returns fall due in March, roughly a month before personal returns, and their late filing penalties are assessed per owner per month rather than as a flat amount. A three owner partnership that files two months late is accruing at six times the headline figure, which is how a missed deadline on a company that owes no tax turns into a real bill.
Extensions are also widely misunderstood. An extension moves the filing deadline, not the payment deadline. Filing on time and paying late are two different failures with two different consequences, and only one of them is solved by an extension.
We put every deadline that applies to you into a calendar at the start of the engagement and work backwards from it, which is why our requests for information arrive earlier than clients expect.
- Existing clients
- A short list of confirmations
- New clients
- Prior return, trial balance, statements, payroll, ownership
- Missing records
- Tell us early. Reconstruction is routine when planned
What we need from you, and when.
Less than you would expect if we keep the books, and more if we do not. Either way, the request goes out early and it is specific rather than a general appeal for documents.
For an existing client, most of the year is already reconciled and closed, so the questions are narrow: confirmation of anything unusual we flagged during the year, the mileage and home office position, any loans or capital introduced, and whatever changed personally that affects the return.
For a new client, we need the prior year return, the trial balance or accounting file, the bank and card statements for the year, details of any fixed assets bought or sold, payroll reports if there were employees, and the ownership details including any change during the year. If some of that does not exist, say so at the start. Reconstructing a year is ordinary work and it is much cheaper when it is planned rather than discovered in the last week.
Common questions
Yes, and for owner operated businesses we prefer to do both. The company return and the owner's return are the same decision seen from two sides, and separating them across two firms is how positions end up inconsistent.
Very common and generally fixable. We file the oldest open year first, work forward, and tell you at the outset what the likely penalty exposure is rather than discovering it together later. Voluntary correction is almost always a better position than waiting to be contacted.
Yes. It is routine work and a large share of it is for entities formed elsewhere by providers who never mentioned the obligation.
Yes, and a large share of our work is exactly that. We prepare the US returns and the US information returns for entities with owners in Canada, Europe, the Gulf and South Asia. What we do not do is the return in your own country. Where a treaty position matters, we take it on the US side and coordinate with your accountant at home rather than guessing at their rules.
Behind on returns?
Tell us which years are open. We will map the exposure before we quote the work.