Business Opportunities Weblog

Tax Implications of LLCs

By on November 4, 2004 in Ideas

Business Owner’s Toolkit:

For tax purposes, the LLC is treated as a sole proprietorship when there is one owner and as a general partnership when there are two or more owners. Neither the sole proprietorship nor the general partnership is a taxpaying entity. They are termed “pass-through entities,” or conduits. The owners report their share of profit and loss (whether or not it is actually distributed) on their personal income tax returns.

The owner of a one-owner LLC must fill out Schedule C and add it to his or her personal income tax return (Form 1040); members of a multiple-owner LLC must use Schedule E with their returns. A multiple-member LLC also must file a partnership information return, Form 1065, which shows how the money came in and was distributed to members, but no entity-level taxes are imposed. “Salary” to the owner of an LLC is really just a way of dividing profits, or an owner’s withdrawal in a one-owner LLC (see our discussion covering the different ways of dividing profits in the LLC).

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Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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