LLC Tax Reporting The four estimate dates
Steven Palmieri, a Tax CFO and the Entrepreneur's CFO, puts each estimate on the person who owes it, on the four federal dates.
See the four datesThe calendar is federal and shared.
Individual estimates divide the year into four periods. January through March is due 15 April. April through May is due 15 June. June through August is due 15 September. September through December is due 15 January of the next year. A Saturday, a Sunday, or a legal holiday moves that due date to the next business day. The payments are reported on the individual return. The calendar does not change with the state where the shop sits. This page leaves the underpayment percentage off, because a stale figure would mislead.
Pass through profit often belongs on the owner's estimate, not on a voucher in the company name. Partnership profit and S corporation profit commonly land on the owners. C corporation tax, when it exists, lands on the company. The classification decides the name on the voucher. We do not let the bank account that happens to hold the cash decide it.
A voucher on the wrong name.
An estimate paid under the company number does not cover tax that will be computed on the owner's return. The reverse is also true. When the pages disagree in April, we look at the name on the payment before we look for a missing deduction. Correcting the name in the same quarter is ordinary work. Discovering it in a notice is more expensive work.
A quiet year can still contain a wrong name voucher from an earlier habit. Leaving it in place because the year had no profit does not fix the credit. The credit has to sit on the return of the person who paid, or be moved. We say which, from the receipt, not from memory.
How the amount gets picked.
No percentage is offered here as a safe amount. The amount follows the profit the books can support and the rules for that year's estimates, which we apply to your numbers on an engagement, not in a paragraph. A page that printed a rate would be wrong the year the rate moved. Bring a current profit figure if you want a number on the call.
The books have to be closed enough to trust the figure. An estimate based on an unreconciled month is a guess with a due date. We would rather use a closed month and a clear assumption than a precise looking number from an open feed.
Company dates that are not these dates.
A calendar year partnership return and a calendar year S return are generally due 15 March. A calendar year C return is generally due 15 April. The same weekend and holiday shift applies. Those are return dates, not the estimate dates above. People mix them and then think an April voucher replaced a March return. It did not.
Payroll deposits, if wages exist, follow the payroll calendar of the provider you run. That calendar is not these four dates. We set the account up. The provider's calendar runs the deposits. Mixing a payroll deposit into an income estimate is another way the names and the forms stop matching.
Ask about an estimate
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