The Small Business Tax Help Blog

Question: Do you pay payroll taxes to partners in a California LLC?

There are four partners who work and all own a share of our California LLC. Do we pay taxes to the EDD for Payroll, or do we pay Self-Employment taxes at the end of the year, or do we do both?
Note: The four partners are the only employees of the LLC.

Answer: Members (what you refer to as “Partners”) of LLC’s are not considered employees, and thus do not pay payroll tax. Each member will be issued a K-1 at the end of the year w/ their share of the LLC’s income/loss which each member will report on their own individual income tax return.

The one thing to beware of is that LLC’s in CA have a tax that is calculated on gross receipts and not net income. If your gross receipts are greater than $5M, you will be taxed $11,700, regardless of whether you actually have any net income. So if you are in that situation, there may be other entity structures that would provide more tax efficiency.

Going into business with a foreign partner

To avoid adverse tax consequences, the owners of the LLC interest should be corporations.

Lawline.com Legal Tip of the Day: Advantages of an S Corporation

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