IRS LLC Filing Two dates sit in two piles

What the federal dates actually are

People use one word, filing, for every page that ever came back. An identification number has its own confirmation, the letter you were told to print after the application. An S election has its own acceptance, which is a different page from the copy of what you sent. A partnership return is Form 1065 and an S corporation return is Form 1120-S, each owed on the fifteenth day of the third month when the year is a calendar year. A C corporation return is Form 1120, and a disregarded company lives on the owner's Form 1040, both owed on the fifteenth day of the fourth month. If that fifteenth falls while the Service is closed, the date you want is the first morning the office is open again.

An extension is yet another page. Form 7004 asks for more time on a partnership, an S corporation, or a C corporation. Form 4868 asks for more time on an individual return. The page that comes back proves the request. It leaves the return itself still ahead. Tax that was due on the original date is not postponed by the extra months. We say that on the first call, because a year goes quiet when the extension date is treated as the return date.

Why two confirmations get mixed

A state stamp and a federal acknowledgment can land in the same downloads folder. Each one has a date. Only the federal page answers whether the Service has the send. We keep a state entity report, where the state asks for one, beside the federal calendar rather than inside it. A state confirmation does not answer a question about an identification number, an election, or a federal return. A federal acknowledgment does not prepare the state report. The relief on this page is naming the two piles before anyone builds a return on the wrong one.

Inside a state report the arithmetic is that state's own choice. None of those choices is a federal election. Form 2553, Form 8832, and the default that applies when neither form was accepted are federal facts. Formation paper and federal form are two documents. The first one brought the company into existence and stopped there. An unfinished month would turn either pile into a guess. A closed month is what makes the chosen computation a number you can defend.

A late state report can carry a charge even in a year when the state tax itself is zero. We mention the shape of that charge so the state date is not treated as optional, and we do not print a price for it here. The figure, when you need it, is read from the state page with the paper in front of us. No fee for our reading of that paper appears on this page either.

The month when a choice can still move

October is late enough that the books can be closed, and early enough that wages and an election conversation can still change the year. A state estimate, where the state has an entity report, gets cheaper to discuss in that same month. Heat in one part of the country does not file the state report, and it does not send anything to the Service. A closed set of books is what lets both years still be discussed as choices.

The absence of a state personal income tax, in a state that has none, is a true sentence about that state. It does not erase the entity report, and it does not erase a federal return. We say both in the same breath so nobody leaves with half the calendar. Estimated payments on the personal side, where they apply, still fall in April, June, September, and January. Those dates are federal. They do not fill the state pile.

What to send if you want both dates read

Send the state confirmation if you want that place filled, and send the federal date separately if you have it. If the state report was extended, say whether an extension payment was made and through which channel. Some states require electronic payment once last year's tax was large enough. We read the two dates on one call and we do not let one confirmation fill the other pile. We will read your paper against the page that state publishes, rather than against memory.

Once the two dates are named, the monthly close is what the return will sit on. Payroll setup waits until the election says wages belong. The state date does not take the place of either of those. Bring whichever page you hope is the date. If you already know the folder has neither, say that. Both answers let us start, and the kitchen table after close is a fine place to find the pages.

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