Register S CorpQuestions owners actually ask
Short answers about the two filings, the agent, the receipt, and the books that follow.
Ask a plain question
Does the state receipt finish the job?
No. The receipt finishes the state act you selected. Formation, a change of agent, or an amendment each end at the receipt for that act. The federal election is Form 2553, and it ends at an acceptance letter, not at the state receipt. A company can be fully recorded by the state and still have a blank federal form.
If someone told you the receipt was the whole registration, they were using the verb as a single office. This site exists because that sentence causes the Wednesday problem. The invented shop on the blank-form page is the long version. The short version is the one you just read.
When is the federal form on time?
The form's own instructions give the window. File during the year before the tax year begins, or no later than two months and 15 days after the tax year begins. The window follows the company's year. A January company and a November company do not share one date on this page. If the window was missed, a late procedure exists and it is not a promise.
Signatures count. A form that the instructions say every owner must sign is incomplete while a signature is missing. Send the form anyway is bad advice we will not give. Name the missing signature in the note instead.
Is the registered agent the same as the election?
No. The agent receives process and official mail and is paid for that, on a schedule that is the agent's, not the election's. Appointing an agent can happen on the formation paper. The appointment still does not elect. An agent renewal the next year is even further from the election. Keep the renewal. File it with the mail contracts.
If you do not know who the agent is, the state record is the place the name is stored. Our page on that record says what the office keeps and what it never kept. The agent line is one of the things it keeps.
Can you run payroll?
Setup is what we do, and payday is what we do not do. The identification number, the state withholding account, the state unemployment account, and a provider you already run are aimed at the status the acceptance supports. Reasonable compensation is written from the work the owner does. That provider calculates, deposits, and files the wage returns.
If there is no acceptance yet, we wait. A wage built on a nickname in the software is the expensive kind of neat. Guessing a wage and then undoing it takes longer than waiting for the acceptance.
What should the books show?
Contributions, distributions, and retained earnings in separate accounts. Opening balance equity emptied once the real balances are known. The accumulated adjustments account treated as a tax computation, not as a cash account. A monthly close on months that actually tie. A return prepared from those closed months and from the papers, not from a label.
Some states do not follow the federal election. The state return may differ. Bring the state where you file. We will not pick one on a national page and perform it for atmosphere.
What if the fit is wrong?
Say so and stop. Signed assurance goes elsewhere. Legal advice on liability goes to a lawyer. Payday stays with your provider. A note that ends in a referral is a successful note. The disclosures page has the longer version of the line, and that is the only page that draws it.
If the fit is close, bring the receipt and the federal paper, or the news that the federal paper is blank. The calendar page is for a time. The form on this page is for a question that does not need a time yet.
Ask in a note.
Write the question in a sentence. Mention which paper you are holding.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.