This annual update covers recent developments relating to S corporations, including new IRS relief for common inadvertent S election lapses; state passthrough entity taxes; and court holdings concerning S corporations’ constructive distributions and passive versus nonpassive activities.
The IRS waived the penalty for corporations that did not make estimated payments of corporate AMT for their 2023 tax year, saying the move is “in the interest of sound tax administration.”
The guidance focuses on nonidentical governing provisions; principal-purpose determinations regarding the one-class-of-stock requirement; disproportionate distributions; certain errors on forms; missing administrative or acceptance letters for an S or QSub election; and the requirement to file returns consistent with an S election.
While it might stand to reason that if there is only one shareholder, then there can be only one class of stock, that is not necessarily what the Code and regulations provide.
Revised draft instructions for partnership and S corporation Schedules K-2 and K-3 contain significant changes to the requirements to qualify for the domestic filing exception for filing and furnishing the 2022 schedules.
The IRS addressed a consolidated corporation’s request to apply Sec. 1362(f) to provide relief from termination of the corporation’s subsidiary’s S corporation and QSub elections.
Generally, a trust cannot hold stock of an S corporation; however, grantor trusts, testamentary trusts, voting trusts, ESBTs, and QSSTs are permissible S corporation shareholders (Sec. 1361(c)(2)).
The IRS delays e-filing capability for schedules reporting S shareholders’ items of international tax relevance, earlier forecast for mid-June, to July 24.