S Corporation Pitfalls – Part 1
By Julia Kingston · 1 Comment
S Corporations are a popular business entity - they allow for limitation of liability, may reduce self-employment taxes, and income is passed through to the owners, resulting in only one level of taxation, while providing a “corporate veil” for liability protection. There are a number of possible pitfalls for the unwary, particularly if the company operated as a C Corporation prior to electing S Corporation status. This series on S Corporation pitfalls will discuss some of the more common issues, and some of the more serious… pitfalls that can have costly results without proper planning…
First, as a rule of thumb, do not hold appreciable assets, such as real estate or passive investments in an S Corporation. Why not? You probably know that there is generally no resulting tax when cash is distributed from S Corporation earnings. What many people fail to realize is that the distribution of appreciated property will result in a taxable transaction. When property is distributed from any type of Corporation (S Corporation or C Corporation) the distribution is made at the property’s Fair Market Value. This means that there is a realized taxable gain on the difference between the Fair Market Value at the date of distribution and the tax basis. You will pay tax on the transaction, and your resulting tax basis in the asset after distribution will be its Fair Market Value at the date of distribution.
This problem is most commonly avoided by distributing cash from the S Corporation to the owners, who then use the funds to purchase real estate, or other passive investments. These assets are frequently purchased through a limited liability company (LLC) to preserve pass through treatment of the income. If the real property is used by the S Corporation in its business, the property is then rented back to the S Corporation. The difference is that distributions from LLC’s (and partnerships) are made at the asset’s tax basis, with no gain or loss recognized on the distribution (resulting in a deferral of tax until the property is actually disposed of). Your basis in the distributed asset will be the same as it was in the hands of the LLC.
Placing appreciable assets into LLC’s instead of S Corporations will provide greater flexibility for future tax planning, and possibly defer the payment of income tax.
Oil and Gas Accounting – SEC Issues SAB 113
The Office of the Chief Accountant through Corp Fin recently published Staff Accounting Bulletin 113. There are four main areas of focus within this SAB which will likely affect everyone to some degree: valuation methodology of oil and gas reserves; clarification of methodology related to write-offs of excess capitalized costs under the full cost method; extending appliability of guidance to include unconventional methods of extracting oil and gas from sand and shale; and removing information from the guidance which is no longer necessary.
For the most part SAB 113 is pretty straight forward, however, as is the case with many of the SABs, hidden in the minutiae are land mines for the unwary or uninformed. Correspondingly you would be well served to skim through it for any matters that might affect your company, and then discuss them with your audit firm.
Additionally, on October 26, 2009 additional Oil and Gas Rules were released. These compliance and disclosure interpretations (C & DIs) relate to Regs S-X and S-K. There is some important information here which is very relevant and brief!
Hip Hip Hooray! Permanent exemption from 404(b) for Small Business is Possible!
Recently, the House Financial Services Committee passed H.R. 3817, the Investor Protection Act. The bill includes an amendment, which would permanently exempt small public companies from complying with Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The bill must still be voted on by the entire House of Representatives, but it is nice to know that there is hope.
As noted in the October 19th blog post by Mark Bailey, the 404(b) requirement for small business issuers is not beneficial in most cases and thus the passing of this act by the House Financial Services Committee is welcome news.
Taking the Life out of LIFO
By Julia Kingston · 3 Comments
For many companies the transition to IFRS will not result in a major change… the big exception is in the manufacturing and retail industries, as IFRS does not allow the use of LIFO (the Last In First Out method of accounting for inventory). Because LIFO treats the last item to be purchased as the first item to be sold, the use of LIFO generally increases the cost of goods sold during periods of inflation. This reduces a company’s assets and earnings, but can result in large tax savings. It is because of this dichotomy that the IRS requires businesses to use LIFO for their book accounting records and financial statements if they wish to use it for tax purposes. Additionally, use of LIFO is generally restricted to mid-to-large sized companies, as it requires additional administrative work to track multiple LIFO layers for each type of inventory, and to prepare tax Uniform Capitalization adjustments on each layer.
Enter IFRS (from 2014 to 2016 for publicly traded companies – transition dates for privately held businesses have not yet been announced). Exit LIFO. If companies can no longer use LIFO for book accounting purposes, they will not be able to use it for tax accounting. This will give rise to a flood of paperwork to the IRS, as each company requests permission to change accounting method (which must be formally requested, even though the change is required and unwanted). More importantly, it will result in a huge income tax liability for nearly all companies required to make the transition.
So far the IRS has not offered any hint of resolution on this matter… and it looks like our manufacturers and retailers may pay the price.