Business tax returns

Estates and trusts

When someone dies, or money and property are held in a trust for someone else, that estate or trust files a return of its own. Anyone who received money from it during the year gets a statement showing their share, which they carry onto their own return.

The return is due the fifteenth day of the fourth month after the year ends. The extension for these is shorter than the one a business gets, so the window closes sooner than people expect. North Carolina has its own version of the return, due at the same point, and we file the two together.

These are not set up to start online. Call the office or book a consultation, and we will go through what the estate or trust actually holds before anything is filed. The federal return is Form 1041.

Nonprofit organizations

A nonprofit usually pays no income tax, but it still has to file every year to keep its tax-exempt status. The return is due the fifteenth day of the fifth month after the accounting year ends.

Which version applies depends on the size of the organization. Larger ones file the full return, smaller ones file a shorter one, private foundations file their own version whatever their size, and the smallest file a brief electronic notice instead. If the organization earns money from something unrelated to its purpose, that gets reported as well, in addition to the annual return rather than in place of it.

Three years in a row without filing costs an organization its tax-exempt status, and that is the failure we see most in this group. The brief electronic notice cannot be extended at all, so the date still matters for an organization that thinks it has nothing to report. These returns are not set up to start online. Call the office or book a consultation. These are the Form 990 series.

North Carolina franchise tax

North Carolina charges corporations a franchise tax for the privilege of doing business in the state. It is not a second return. It goes on the same corporate return as the income tax, so there is one filing rather than two.

The part that surprises owners is what it is charged on. Franchise tax is based on what the company is worth rather than on what it earned, so a business can owe it in a year it made nothing. There is a minimum, and for business years beginning on or after 1 January 2025 that minimum is $200. It applies even to a corporation that did no business at all during the year.

Working out the number is not something you need to do. We take it from the balance sheet and put it on the return with everything else.

If you are starting a business and will be collecting sales tax, ask us about setting up your sales tax account with the state and filing the returns that go with it.

Owners need a personal return too

Money from a partnership or an S corporation does not stop at the business. Your share lands on your own personal return whether or not you actually took the money out. That is why your personal return cannot be finished until the business return is done.

We prepare both together for most of our business clients. Nothing sits waiting on a figure from the other return, and we set your payments for the year ahead while the whole picture is in front of us.

A return goes faster and costs less when the books are already current, which is why many of our business clients pair theirs with monthly bookkeeping.

Our office does not run payroll. If you have employees or expect to hire, tell us and we will point you toward a payroll provider, then take their reports into your books.

The businesses we work with

We are at 217 West Main Street in Locust, where the Stanly and Cabarrus county line runs through the town, and most of our business clients are within half an hour of it. The mix changes noticeably across that distance. Around Midland and Locust it is construction and the trades; in Albemarle it is independent practices and small manufacturers; in Concord it is motorsports fabrication, food and drink, and small carriers on the I-85 corridor; in Oakboro and Norwood a real share of it is farms and seasonal lake businesses.

That matters for a business return more than it does for a personal one, because the county decides where your annual business property listing goes and the town sometimes adds a registration of its own. Cabarrus County, for instance, no longer issues business licences at all, while the Town of Harrisburg does require its own registration — which is the reverse of what most new owners expect.