Accounting Firms Austin AlternativeThe taxes a business in Austin meets.
The rates are public, the due rhythm is public, and the month still has to be closed before either number is honest.
Open the tax page
The transit tax nobody named.
Sales tax is three rates wearing one total. A taxable sale in Austin is taxed at 8.25 percent. That total is not a single local invention. The state rate is 6.25 percent. The remaining 2 percent is local, and the local piece splits again into 1 percent for the city and 1 percent for Capital Metro, the transit authority also known as the Austin MTA. Owners who only remember 8.25 percent still file a correct total, and owners who need to explain the total to a partner should be able to name the split.
A seller who files monthly aims at the 20th in the month after the sales happened. A weekend or a holiday can nudge the clock, so the safe habit is to have the period closed several days before the 20th rather than on the morning it is due. An open month full of unnamed deposits is how a taxable sale gets missed or double counted.
Not every deposit that hits the bank is a taxable sale. Owner contributions, loan draws, transfers between accounts, and sales tax you already collected are not new revenue. A feed that dumps all of them into income will inflate the sales-tax return and the income-tax return together. The close separates them before anyone files.
Franchise tax still has a May, even in a quiet year.
Texas franchise tax is not a personal income tax, and Texas does not levy a personal income tax at all. Companies can still owe a franchise report. The annual rhythm lands in May. A company under the no-tax-due threshold can still have to file the public information report, which is a short sheet about who owns and manages the company, not a tax bill.
Owners confuse that sheet with the federal return. They are different documents, due to different offices, built from overlapping facts. The federal return cares about profit. The public information report cares about who the members and managers are. A change of address or a new manager belongs on the public sheet even when profit was thin.
We prepare the May work from the same closed year we use for the federal return. If December never tied, May is too late to pretend it did. The repair happens in the file first. The form is second. That order is slower in March and much calmer in May.
The federal return still follows the election.
A company formed with the Texas secretary can be taxed federally in more than one way. A single-member company is often disregarded, so the activity lands on the owner's individual return. Two or more members are often a partnership. An S election or a C corporation election changes the federal form again. The state filing that created the company does not, by itself, pick that federal form.
Choosing late, or forgetting that a choice was made years ago, is how a year gets prepared on the wrong form. Before we draft, we ask which election is actually in force. If nobody knows, we stop and find out. Drafting on a guess wastes the closed months, because the numbers then have to be mapped a second time.
Estimates, extensions, and notices sit on top of this, not instead of it. An extension is a plan when the months are closed and a scramble when they are not. A notice is answered after someone reads what it actually requests. None of that work repairs a year of open months. The months come first, including for owners in Austin who only called because a letter arrived.
A seller who files monthly should be able to point at the period that supports the return. The return needs three piles kept apart, covering what was taxed, what was exempt, and the tax dollars already sitting in the bank. Mixing them is how a return looks busy and still fails a basic check. We separate the piles during the close, then the 20th is a filing date rather than a research project. If the permit says the company is a quarterly filer, the same separation still happens every month, and the return simply waits for the quarter to end.
Franchise and sales tax can both be true in a thin year. A company can owe nothing on the franchise line and still collect sales tax every week. One fact does not cancel the other. The public information report can also be due when the franchise line is quiet. We keep those calendars on one page for you so May and the 20th do not surprise each other. Bring the permit letter and the last franchise filing if you have them. If you have only the bank login and a worry, that is still enough to start the sort.
Which return is in front of you.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.