Exam 15: Entities Overview

LLC members have more flexibility than corporate shareholders to alter their legal arrangements with respect to one another, the entity, and with outsiders.

For the current year, Creative Designs Inc., a C corporation, reports taxable income of $300,000 before paying salary to Ben the sole shareholder of Creative Designs Inc. (CD). Ben's marginal tax rate on ordinary income is 28 percent and 15 percent on dividend income. Assume CD's tax rate is 39 percent. a. How much total income tax will Creative Designs and Ben pay on the $300,000 taxable income for the year if CD doesn't pay any salary to Ben and instead distributes all of its after-tax income to Ben as a dividend? b. How much total income tax will Creative Designs and Ben pay on the $300,000 of income if CD pays Ben a salary of $100,000 and distributes its remaining after-tax earnings to Ben as a dividend? c. Compare your answer in part a with your answer to part b. Explain why these numbers are different.

Corporations are legally better suited for taking a business public compared with LLCs and general partnerships.

For tax purposes, only unincorporated entities can be considered to be disregarded entities.

In the current year, DNS (a C corporation) had taxable income of $600,000 and distributed all of its after-tax earnings to Daniel, its sole shareholder. DNS's tax rate is 38 percent. Assuming Daniels's marginal tax rate on ordinary income is 28 percent and his dividend rate is 15 percent, what is the overall tax rate (combined corporate level and shareholder level) on DNS's $600,000 of taxable income?

General partnerships are legally formed by filing a partnership agreement with the state in which the partnership will be formed.

Assume you plan to start a new enterprise; you know the probability of having losses for the first three years of operations is almost 90 percent, and you know you will report a substantial amount of income from other sources during those same three years. From a tax perspective, which of the following entity choices would be least favorable?

Shareholders of C corporations receiving property distributions must recognize dividend income equal to the fair market value of the distributed property if the distributing corporation has sufficient earnings and profits.

C corporations and S corporations are separate taxpaying entities that pay tax on their own income.

If you were seeking an entity with the most favorable tax treatment regarding (1) the number of owners allowed, (2) the flexibility to select your accounting period, and (3) the availability of preferential capital gains rates when selling your ownership interest, which entity should you decide to use?