Do-it-yourself Mississippi S Corporation Kit

Forming an S corporation can save your Mississippi business hundreds or even thousands of dollars of income and payroll taxes every year. And, while it's discouraging to think of paying some accountant or attorney $500 to set up an S corporation for you, you actually don't need to. You can set it up yourself if you take three relatively simple steps.

Step One: Form an Eligible Entity

You may have done this if you already set up your business. Most likely, your eligible entity will be either a limited liability company or a regular corporation. You could also use, for example, a limited liability partnership, but that's a bit less common, and the set up is practically identical to an LLC.

The eligible entity is the platform from which you will make the election to be treated as an S corporation. To form an LLC, you fill out an Articles of Organization form, and submit it to the Secretary of State in Jackson. For a corporation, you fill out and submit an Articles of Incorporation form. Both forms also require a $50 filing fee, and lucky for you, that's one of the lowest fees in the country.

To clarify, when you form an S corporation, you actually make an election to be treated using the tax law described in Subchapter S of the tax code, hence the name. So you don't have to be a corporation to be an S corporation.

Step Two: Getting your EIN

Next you need to get an EIN, or Employer Identification Number, from the IRS. An EIN is like a Social Security Number for businesses. For this, you fill out an SS-4 form, which is available for free download from the IRS website.

Step Three: Make the S Corporation Election

Once you receive your EIN from the IRS, you can make the election to be treated as an S corporation. For this you fill out a 2553 form, also available from the IRS website. Submit this form to the Internal Revenue Service Center in Ogden, Utah.

Note: There are two Internal Revenue Service Centers that process Subchapter S elections, one in Ogden, Utah, and one in Cincinnati, Ohio. Different states are required to send their forms to different centers. If you from an S corporation in a state other than Mississippi check which center you are required to use.

Those of you who feel totally confident with this process, by all means, get started forming your S corporation. For those that would like some more help, consider downloading one of my do-it-yourself S corporation kits. I created two easy, affordable versions of my do-it-yourself kits: one for LLCs and another for corporations.

Mississippi S Corpporation Kit: LLC Version

In almost every case, a business should use an LLC to make the S corporation election; LLCs are much easier to maintain than corporations. My LLC kit describes the benefits and weaknesses of forming an LLC in Mississippi. It gives clear, detailed steps to guide you through the entire process of forming an S corporation, as well as completed examples of all the forms involved. As a bonus, I include two sets of sample operating agreements, one for single member (single owner) LLCs and one for multiple member (multiple owner) LLCs.

Mississippi S Corpporation Kit: LLC Version

In some special cases, using a traditional corporation may be a better fit for your business than an LLC. And if If you choose to use a traditional corporation, I created a kit for that too. In my corporation kit, I analyze balancing the benefits if incorporating in Mississippi with the drawbacks. I walk you through the steps of incorporating and forming an S corporation with completed forms for reference. As a bonus, I include a set of sample corporate bylaws, which can be used be you or your attorney as a starting point for creating your own bylaws.