S Corp Distributions How these pages are made.

What the pages cover.

An owner takes money from a company and then has to say what the money was. The pages on this site stay with that question. Wages for the work come first. Cash that is not pay comes next, and only as far as basis still allows. A loan is a third name, and it needs paper of its own. A percentage split is not an answer we will print.

We keep the books so those names can be told apart. We set up payroll so the wage line is a real wage, run by the payroll provider the company already uses. The return comes only after a month has stopped moving. The past gets named correctly. The present gets a close the owner can read. The year ahead gets a wage that still matches the work.

A good month is quiet. The bank matches the books. The wage statement lists the pay that ran through payroll for the work the owner actually did that year. The cash that left the company has one name, and that name is written down before anyone argues about it. Nothing on these pages is a client story, and nothing on them is a sample dollar taken from a real file.

Where the work stops.

Steven Palmieri is not a CPA. When the request is a signed audit, a signed review, or a signed compilation, it belongs with a firm whose practice includes that signature. On the first call we name that signature limit out loud and point the owner toward a firm allowed to sign the report.

Payday stays with the payroll provider. We set the wage, the deposit rhythm, and the year-end wage statements. Running payday is the provider's job. A ratio of profit to pay is not something these pages will print, and nobody else's figures are filled into the three lines.

What we will not pretend.

We will not call a transfer a distribution just because the software used that word. We will not call it a loan because a loan sounds quieter. We will not teach a famous split and then hide a sample beside the refusal. When a paragraph in the instructions needs a fresh reading before it can be stated, we leave it unstated rather than guess.

Health coverage paid for an owner who holds more than two percent belongs on the wage statement. The pages say that. They do not add a second rule beside it until the instructions for that year have been read again with the file in hand.

Basis is a ceiling. Cash that is not wages can go out free of a second tax only while basis remains. Past that ceiling the cash has a different tax life. The order of old earnings from a prior life of the company is one of the paragraphs we re-read with the file. We name the ceiling here. We do not teach the order as a slogan.

Who publishes the pages.

Steven Palmieri is the Tax CFO and the Entrepreneur's CFO, and the work done here is naming wages, the other cash, and basis. The pages talk about the books, a notice, a payroll setup, a receipt, a shop, and a filing date that is the same in every state.

If a page is wrong, use the phone number in the footer. The corrected wording replaces what was wrong. A known miss stays published only until that replacement can go up.

What a quiet month contains.

A quiet month starts with the bank. Every deposit and every payment has a name in the books, and the name matches what happened. The wage that left through payroll matches the work the owner did. Cash that left some other way is sitting under a temporary name until we can call it a distribution, a loan, or something that still needs paper.

Reconciliations are part of that quiet. Bank activity, card charges, and loan balances have to match the ledger before anyone calls the month quiet. Only after that match does the owner get a statement worth reading. An open month does not get a report, and it does not get a return.

The year ahead is the same conversation moved forward. If the wage was thin for the work, there is still time in an ordinary autumn month to correct it with the payroll provider the company already uses. The correction is a wage, not a story added at the end. Nothing in that correction is a sample taken from another company.

In that same conversation we also name the refusals. No printed ratio. No signed audit, review, or compilation from this practice. The company keeps its current payroll provider for every payday.

How an engagement starts.

A form note and a booked time are only a talk. Neither one hires the practice. Hiring begins after a written letter lists the job and the price and both sides sign that letter. Until the letter exists, these pages stay general notes, and your figures stay off them.

What you send, and what you decide after reading it, remains your responsibility. An open month gets named as open. While a month can still change, drafting the return stays off the table. Records you send are used for the conversation you asked for, kept as long as the work and the law require, and returned or removed when you ask and the law allows.