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Written by : Kendall Riney |
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hi this is Bob tooms again and I just wanted to show you what I call the California LLC tax trick now although this is specific to California I'm I want to show it to everybody because every state really has its own little tricks and if you can gain insight into what one state does typically you can get an insight into what your state is likely to do besides if you live in California I really want you to see this because it's very important what we're looking at here is the 2007 limited liability company return of income form 568 let's just do a little let's just say that you've made a hundred thousand dollars for this tax year ok that's terrific now what it comes down to for this particular trick is lines two and three the limited liability company fee see instructions and the limited liability company tax see instructions okay so let's go to the instructions here's what this is all about I think everybody knows that if you run an LLC in California you owe $800 to the state regardless of whether you've made any money or not now if you're just looking at the form if it's your first time filling this out you're gonna see limited liability company feet well that sounds like that $800 thing that you've heard about because the $800 is a flat amount did you have to pay regardless of whether there's any income or not and then down here limited liability company tax well that sounds like an amount that would be based on your income because every other tax you've ever seen in your life is based on the amount that you've made or that your company's made or whoever has made it to graduated tax if you made this much you owe this much if you made more than that you owe more than that so you've made a hundred thousand dollars for the year and there happens to be a cut-off of about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars this year so you're under that cutoff so you don't go any of what you would think of as a tax but back to the instructions where we see annual limited liability company tax LLC's are subject to an eight hundred dollar annual tax if they are doing business in California oh wait a minute that thing you thought was a fee is here called a tax and down here a limited liability company fee in addition to the annual tax every LLC must pay a fee based on total California income that's a complete reversal of what any reasonable human being would expect and believe me people make this mistake I made this mistake friends of mine made this mistake it happens all the time and here are the consequences if you do this wrong if you fill out lines two and three wrong many months later you will get something that looks like this in which they tell you fee nothing tax eight hundred dollars what they're telling you is that because you put you thought this was a fee so you put eight hundred dollars here and you put zero here that weird thing is PDF and trying to fill in a an old value of pay no attention to it this is wrong don't do this otherwise you will get this and what they've done is they've literally sent us back our eight hundred dollar check and they're asking for an eight hundred dollar check plus all these penalties and interest for doing it wrong by the way this was a few years ago so those amounts have probably changed so the thing that you need to do go back to here is this is zero and this is eight hundred dollars that is correct do that and you'll be fine now that was part one of the trick you thought that was enough oh no there's more part two has to do with the fact that you're $800 LLC tax is due literally the second you incorporate your company even if you incorporate on December 10th of let's say 2007 you owe $800 for the entire year that amount is not prorated and it's due right away so first bit of advice we'll just add $800 to your startup budget and just get it paid whenever you start up and just get it over with because here's what happens you're seeing that I'm doing the 2007 form 568 at the same time that I file this on April 15th I'm going to file the 2008 LLC tax voucher now let me just show you that again because there is a logic to this but you kind of have to hang on tight to get there we're doing it it happens to be March of 2008 right now as I'm recording this and so I'm going to be preparing the 2007 return of income because I can only report last year's numbers I don't have this year's numbers that's why these reports always trail by one year but if you think of the fact that the LLC tax is always due no matter what then it's kind of always do in the present so you're going to be doing the 2008 tax voucher the 2007 return of income reporting on last year's numbers but the 2008 tax voucher for this year so again just just remember that this is always do in the present it's kind of always do now so that as soon as you start your company just go ahead and budget the extra money pay the $800 get it done and then you'll be on track so that's really those are parts 1 & 2 of the LLC tax trick and I just really wanted to show this to you I don't get anything out of showing it to you but it's it's terribly important so there it is and again this is only relevant to California LLC's specifically but again every state has its own little tricks so please keep in a close eye out for this sort of thing um so that's it please go forth and be prosperous and thanks very much
Thanks for your comment Bert Alm, have a nice day.
- Kendall Riney, Staff Member
if you have a single member llc and are wondering how to file your income taxes in this video i am going to explain to you exactly what you need to know to make sure you file your income taxes correctly many of you have started businesses and when you do a lot of you start up a single member llc you've gone on to your secretary of state website or you've hired some company to form an llc for you and now it's tax time and you're wondering what is it that you need to do in order to make sure you're in tax compliance with your single member llc the first thing i want to make sure of is that i explain to you what a single member llc is because often times what i've seen in practice if people think they're in a single member llc and they are not so a single member llc is when one person has formed an llc and you are the sole member you're the only person that is going to benefit from owning this llc you have not received any other income from anybody else that is going to help fund your business none of your buddies or partners have given you money and they have an equity interest in your business it's just solely you by yourself running your business i think that's so important because what i have been seeing is a lot of people that have single member llcs have received monies and startup money seed money from friends helping them and they truly do have a multi-member llc so now that we're real clear that you have a single member llc what we like to call an sm single member llc now i want to tell you what it looks like to file your income taxes as a single member llc you are not going to have a separate tax form you're actually going to include the tax form inside your individual income tax return that's correct your individual income tax return the 1040 form that you're going to file you're going to include a schedule c or a schedule e and i will come back to that inside of your individual income tax return that is because as a single member llc you automatically default to a sole proprietor business for income tax purposes no you're not a sole proprietor yes you still are an llc you still are a limited liability company you still have that asset protection but for income tax purposes you default to a schedule c inside of your 1040 income tax return when you have to file that schedule c i want to make sure you understand exactly what you need to file that schedule c accurately because this is going to be very important the first thing that you're going to need is to make sure that you account for all of your income now many times when people are first starting these llc's you still may not have a business bank account open you might be receiving monies through your personal account it is going to be really important that you track down all your income from all sources and i want to make sure that you go back through your personal bank account and look for any monies that came into your personal bank account that were affiliated with your single member llc you want to also go through any other accounts like venmo cash app paypal any third-party accounts that you have that are linked to your business you want to make sure that if you have a single member llc that if you haven't done so already that you set up that bank account under the name of your single member llc if you have that bank account open you want to make sure you account for all the income that has gone into that bank account that's really really important to gather all the income so that we can start with the right number the third thing that i want to make sure of is that you understand how to keep track of all of your expenses because even though you're a single member loc you're still deemed a business and businesses all have the same requirement to keep adequate books and records so if you don't have your accounting already set up you're going to need to account for all of your expenses and i do mean all of your expenses from all sources all the sources your personal bank account your credit card statement any apps that you're using to pay for any type of service you want to make sure you account for all of those expenses and when you do account for all of those expenses it's going to be very important that you categorize those expenses properly when you look at a schedule c form and i'm going to advise that you actually look at it before getting your taxes prepared you're going to notice on that form that there are certain categories certain boxes that irs is looking for you to complete i want to make sure that you complete all of the check boxes that's going to be very important you need to make certain that you put the proper information in the proper spot so for example they have advertising on that schedule c for a reason they have car expenses listed on that schedule c for a reason you want to make sure that you put your expenses in the right categories that's going to be important and if you really want to level up you want to make sure that you have what's called a profit and loss form put together that is going to show your gross income and all of your expenses and that's what's going to be needed in order to complete that form inside of your personal income tax return that schedule c form now remember i told you you would file a schedule c or you would follow schedule e if you are using your single member loc to hold real estate you would then file a schedule e that's the residential rental property schedule it's important that you list the name of your loc on your schedule e because you are doing business as a real estate investor it's also important to note that if you are in a state that requires a separate filing for state income tax return like the state of california requires you to file a form 568. in addition to the 1040 that you're going to file the federal return with that schedule c you also need to file whatever form your state needs california has the 568 texas has the franchise forms you want to make sure that you file all those appropriate forms so that you're in compliance all the way across the board it's really important that you do that in addition to making sure that you file the proper way with your business as a single member llc i want to go through some things that i want you to look out for things that i know people get and trouble with all the time many times what i see is that people that have single member llcs will say to me you know what carla i didn't make any money in my llc i've had my llc for two years i never made any money so i never filed i want you to realize that when you create an llc it's like a baby being born you got to take care of it from day one that means that you have to file a tax return from day one even if you don't have any income to report even if you don't have any expenses to report you still have a filing requirement because when you went out and formed that llc now the secretary of state knows that you have a business and you want to keep that business in compliance by making sure that you properly file the second thing i want to make sure to keep you from getting into a slinky is that you need to make
Thanks Shena your participation is very much appreciated
- Kendall Riney
About the author
I've studied institutional economics at Claflin University in Orangeburg and I am an expert in automata theory (formal languages). I usually feel optimistic. My previous job was soldier I held this position for 8 years, I love talking about wax sealing and marathon running. Huge fan of Ronald Reagan I practice softball and collect cereal box prizes.
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