S Corp TaxationThere is no menu of tricks

What people hope the menu would do

The hope is understandable. Someone wants the year to cost less, and a list feels like a way to shop for that. Shopping for a lower bill before the forms are read is how a year gets a costume instead of a reading. We will name the form. We will not sell the costume.

If a line is open on the shareholder's return, the instructions say so, and we will look. When that line is closed, we say the line is closed. Leaving a trick off the page is not a failure of imagination. The year you actually had is the year we prepare.

What we will do instead

We keep the books current, set payroll up when people are paid, and prepare the return from months the bank agrees with. Those three change what is possible before December, which is the only honest version of planning. A conversation in October about wages and timing is planning. A PDF of twenty ideas is not.

A poor fit is named in that first conversation. If the months are a pile you do not want rebuilt, we stop before anyone sketches a long engagement. Ending there is a complete answer.

Where the other questions go

Cash-line questions go to the cash page, and only as a boundary. Wage questions go to the wage page. A loss that might not be usable goes to the loss page. Company-level tax, the uncommon kind, goes to its own page. Each of those pages argues one point. None of them is a menu of tactics for sale.

If you want the reading, send the K-1 or say you do not have it yet. If you want a menu, this is the wrong room, and we would rather tell you that in the first paragraph than after you have filled in a form.

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