Business Tax Deadline, an LLC follows its letter

A single-owner company that never elected anything is usually disregarded. It follows the owner's own date. A company with more than one owner, and no other election, is usually a partnership, and the March Monday applies. An S election follows the S corporation Monday. A C election follows the April Wednesday.

The bank account will not tell you which of those you are. The letter will. If the letter is in a drawer you have not opened since the company was formed, the first job is to open the drawer.

An owner with a disregarded company sometimes hears about the March Monday from a friend and files a return the company does not have. Another owner with a partnership letter waits for April because the personal date is the only date they have ever circled. Both mistakes start from the same sentence. Someone said LLC and everyone nodded.

We ask for the letter before we circle a day. If you cannot find it, that is the sentence we want. A guessed election is more expensive than a missing page.

Whichever federal row the letter picks, the owner's estimates are still a different calendar from the company filing day. The owner's four payments are spaced through the year, one with April, one with June, one with September, and one in the January that follows the year the company just finished. Form 7004 can move the company return and still leave the tax already due where it was. For a March company, May is already too late to request the original extension, because the request has to reach the IRS before the original due day. Publication 509 is the weekend table. This page does not restate a penalty table.

Form 7004 moves Form 1065 and Form 1120-S from the March Monday to 15 September, and Form 1120 from the April Wednesday to 15 October, when the request reaches the IRS before the original due day. The tax already due does not ride along.

We keep the books under whichever row the letter names, set payroll up with the provider you already run, and prepare the return from closed months. We do not represent you before the IRS.