LLC C CorpA company is not a tax choice

State law can give you a company called an LLC. Federal tax then asks a second question the certificate does not answer. One owner, and no election filed, and the company is usually disregarded. The shop's year shows up on the return the owner already files. The shop still has a legal name. The return may still be the person's return.

Two or more owners, and no election, and the default is a partnership. That means a partnership return and, later, a form for each owner. People who wanted a simple company are often meeting that stack for the first time. The stack is not a punishment. It is the default that applies when nobody elected anything else.

Form 8832 is how a company elects to be taxed as a corporation. Form 2553 is the S election. It is a later form, not the form this screen is about, and it has its own clock. We do not quote the dollar lines that sit on that later form. If you already filed it, you are past this screen, and the reading you need is a different one.

A K-1 exists only after an S election is in place, or after a partnership return needs one. No election, no K-1 from an S corporation. Waiting for a K-1 that the facts cannot produce is how a spring gets wasted. We would rather say, on the first call, which stack you are actually in.

The LLC box on this screen means you want the company, and you want the federal choice left where the law leaves it until you deliberately move it. That can be the right life. It is not the same life as the corporate box, and the books should be opened in the life you actually picked.