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Written by : Marry Ursiak |
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okay in this video i wanted to talk about tax reporting for single member llcs and one of the big questions i always get is can my single member llc file a partnership tax return and i can get a k1 and a lot of times owners want to do that because they want a separate business tax return for their company um if they're going to apply for a loan or they have to provide it for some type of financing purposes and so here we're going to address whether or not you can actually do that well some of the basics to start with at the top if you form an llc that has only one owner the question is what type of tax return do you file and so what we need to do is follow the default tax rules for for llcs and this includes single member llc's and multi-member llc's so a single member llc that has only one owner is a disregarded entity or dre for federal tax purposes now a dre generally doesn't file its own tax return because it's disregarded meaning it's almost completely transparent all the activities of the llc are reported directly on the tax return of the 100 owner so in this example here we have john he's a u.s citizen he lives and works in florida uh john forms a florida llc he's the only owner the llc doesn't file its own tax return because it's a disregarded entity john has to report all the activities of the llc on his personal tax return so then john asks well can i file a form 1065 instead and just give myself a k1 that's a 100 owner the short answer is no you can't so form 1065 is for a partnership tax return in order for the llc to be treated as a partnership the llc has got to have at least two owners so it has to have more than one member in order to be a partnership if john's the only owner it's still a single member llc it's not a partnership for federal tax purposes so it can't file in 1065. right if john were to go ahead and file a 1065 for this single member llc with only one owner and only one k1 because it has only one owner the irs is just flat out going to reject the filing if you e-file the return it's going to get rejected in the e-file if you paper file it the irs doesn't process it it sends it back to you i've actually seen this happen in practice where tax preparers have filed a 1065 for a single member llc and it just you know begs the question what were you thinking so yeah if you have a single member llc do not file a partnership return it will not work so so john's exploring his options now what does he need to do if he wants to file a separate return for the llc well he has a couple options so the first one and the most popular is to file an escort election so when you file an escort election for an llc and it has one owner it has to file a separate form 1120s s corp tax return every year right so john receives a k1 at the end of the year which shows his allocation of 100 of the the income expenses deductions etc that's okay he can own 100 percent of a single member llc and elect to be taxed as an escort the second option is he can file a c corp election so you file a c corp election for a single member llc via 8832 once the c corp election is approved the llc files a separate form 1120 corporate tax return the llc has to pay federal corporate income taxes directly and then any dividend distributions paid to john are reported on schedule b of his uh his form 1040 every year right so he has to pay tax on the dividends that's the double taxation issue with c corp structures um the third option is he can just add a second partner right so if john has a family friend or family member or just any other friend or business partner he can add that person to the llc to create a partnership structure this is even permitted if it's a nominal interest right so there's really no set percentage ownership value that you have to give somebody so if he has a new partner come in that only owns one percent that's enough that creates a partnership structure for the lc and uh the llc now has to file a form 1065. so in this example john would get his k1 with an allocation of 99 percent of the income and the second partner gets one percent right so that is one way to create a tax filing for the llc now the last one and this is a little more complicated but it's it's also common particularly in family limited partnership structures but john could have his llc and then he forms a separate company he forms a separate corporation either a c corp or an escort and he owns 100 of that stock then what he does is he takes that company and he adds it to that existing llc as a partner so kind of similar to what we have up here so now the new company comes in as a partner let's say a one percent partner and because it's its own separate person and regarded entity it creates that partnership structure so john owns 99 of his llc the other one percent is owned by his second corporation and that could be a c corp or an escort and at the end of the day john ben officially owns 100 of everything right because he basically he owns 100 of a company that owns one percent of his existing company so at the end of the day everything goes to him um but he has that separate regarded identity in there to create the partnership structure for that first llc so um so that covers it for single member llc reporting i hope that was helpful if you have any questions please leave me a comment below and i look forward to seeing you again uh on the next video thank you
Thanks for your comment Federico Majcher, have a nice day.
- Marry Ursiak, Staff Member
hello welcome back in this video i'm showing you exactly how to file your small business tax return if you're a multi-member llc or just a multi-owner business so you would default to be a partnership in either case you need to file form 1065 partnership business tax return in this video i'm going to show you exactly how to do that with the software i recommend using called taxact before we jump in if you're new here my name is amanda and you're watching the business finance coach where i simplify all these technicalities of business to help you succeed because i truly believe that the world needs your business and you should not be held back or overwhelmed by these aspects of our civilized society so with that let's get started with how to file your form 1065 partnership business tax return if we look at my cheat sheet here we can see llc's are disregarded entities if we have a multi-member llc that means there's two or more owners and they're taxed like a partnership so both llc's and partnerships are all tax like partnerships so if you start a business with someone else and you form no business you default to be a partnership okay as well and you'd file to form 1065 too so this is a separate business tax return form 1065 you can see this here and this is the return we'll go over today and how you fill it out using tax act i highly recommend taxact over anything else i'll go into why in a separate video we'll leave that out of this video but before we jump in i want to explain a few things so that they're clear as we're updating the form and tax act with a partnership business tax return the business is filing its own tax form that's what form 1065 is it reports everything that's going on in the business but the business doesn't actually pay taxes there are some sections about taxes on form 1065 but those aren't commonly used those are exceptions to the general rule the general rule is that the business pays no tax all of the information on that form 1065 business tax return about the business flows through or passes through to the owners on schedule k ones so attached to the form 1065 in the back is a schedule k one for each owner in the business based on their share of the business they have all of the activity in the business reported to them on a schedule k1 the total of all the scheduled k1s equals the form 1065. and so the business must file its tax return by march 15th for a regular calendar year but you can file an extension however keep in mind that each owner needs their schedule k1 from the business to report on their personal tax form form 1040. just like you get a w-2 when you work a job and then you put that on your personal tax form same thing with being an owner or a member in a multi-order business you're going to get a schedule k1 that you then report for your personal tax form so the owners can't file their taxes until the business files its taxes and so that's how the business pays no tax instead the owners pay the taxes for the business activity based on how it accumulates with all of their investments and all the businesses they own personally so let's jump in to using taxact to fill out this return and you can e-file it using tax act as well you'll see here we're at taxact.com and we'll head into business taxes and i'll include a link for this in the description below as well you come down to partnership and click get started and this what i'm going to go through shows you how to do the tax forms online now i'm logged in but you are going to have to set up an account and they also have you verify your email and or your phone number and they send you a code that you then have to verify and put in so the 2020 tax return isn't available yet so we're going to use 2019 you can click add a 2019 return to start a new return once you do so you're going to see it listed here like this one and you can come back in to edit this description or open the tax return or remove the return so i'm going to go ahead and open it and go back in and this is what it looks like when you log in you can tell what year you're in up here in the top left we've got a 2019 tax return online business that's the edition of tax act form 1065. so our first section is basic info and we have all of these little sections we can jump to then we have k1 wizard that's what i was talking about the schedule k ones that are attached to the return and so that's basically going to be the information for each owner then we have this federal section income deductions pass-through items so this is all of the activity of the business that's going to come from your accounting records and then you have state specific information which is just extra stuff right because all the activity from federal will flow to the state this is just extra information that's needed for the specific state returns then we'll review the return you can look at reports alerts and then file the return this is where you can e-file you can pay-per-file you can print the return you can file an extension or amend the return which means you already filed it and it was accepted and now you need to make a change so you're going to submit amended return and that's all so you want to start at basic info and come down here and click continue and go through and answer all of the questions so this is where you get started with the business name a dba then we have the address and an employer identification number which you have to have for a multi-member llc or a partnership business because there's no other number to represent the business but if you don't have an ein because you didn't have employees you can get one yourself at the irs website i have a video on this that we will link below phone number principal business activity what is the activity in my example that i've made up here i'm using my online business so i said online education the principal product or service i sell is e-courses so just you know apply your situation it's a very broad categorization and then you need to check this box if you have a specified service trade or business and this has to do with section 199a which is the 20 deduction of income and i have other videos that go over that so i will link those as well but the business has to report to the partners each owner if they qualify for this or not so you can always click the little information search in the help center or check out my videos for more information but basically examples of a specified trade or business include but not limited to health law accounting actuarial services performing arts consulting which is a lot athletics financial services and brokerage services so if you are in one of those categories you need to check this box if not you might want to do a little more research and definitely leaving it unchecked is favorable if you're above the 157 000 for single or double that for married couples you know if you're not this then that's advantageous we'll click continue now the business activity code just look through and find what applies to you these are old categories from business for the last hundred years so they haven't really been modernized
Thanks dearverucal your participation is very much appreciated
- Marry Ursiak
About the author
I've studied accounting at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City and I am an expert in actuarial science. I usually feel aggravated. My previous job was film editor I held this position for 23 years, I love talking about water sports and rugby. Huge fan of Jim Nabors I practice gaelic games and collect coca-cola.
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