Taxpayer's Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps

How can I avoid self-employment taxes? This simple question was the inspiration for creating an article describing the benefits of an S Corporation. That original article, which was about four pages long, quickly became a series of KnowledgeBase articles on the Watson CPA Group website. The articles touched on basic topics such as how to elect S Corp status, payroll, reasonable salary determination, retirement planning, health care, fringe benefits and liability protection.

Those broad topics demanded much more information, both horizontally by spanning into more related issues, and vertically by digging deeper into the granular yet riveting levels of the tax code. The articles were grouped and relabeled as the Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps which grew to 39 pages in its first edition. Sorry, all the good titles were taken (remember, the longer the title the less important the material is. Bible, Beowulf, Caddyshack.. short and sweet). The Hunt for Red October is one exception.

Time marched on, and more information was added to the first edition such as expanded retirement planning concerns, health care options after the Affordable Care Act and business valuations including exit strategies. Boom, we now had our second edition at over 100 pages. At that point it was suggested by some clients and colleagues to convert the PDF into an eBook as well as paperback. So here we are.. on our third edition.

Each week we receive several phone calls and emails from small business owners across the country who have read our Taxpayer’s Comprehensive Guide to LLCs and S Corps and praised the wealth of information. Regardless of your current situation, whether you are considering starting your own business or entertaining a contracting gig, or you are an experienced business owner, the contents of this book are for you.

This book will show you how to reduce your self-employment taxes through an S Corporation election and how to use your corporation to your retirement and fringe benefit advantage. You will also learn the operational considerations of an S Corp plus the 185 reasons you should NOT elect S Corp status. Want to buy or sell a business? That’s in here too.

This book is written with the general taxpayer in mind. Too many resources simply regurgitate complex tax code without explanation. While in some cases tax code and court opinions are duplicated verbatim because of precision of the words, this book strives to explain many technical concepts in layperson terms with some added humor and opinions. We believe you will find this book educational as well as amusing.