Do-it-yourself Nebraska S Corporation Kit

The upcoming taxes from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as Obamacare, and the coming expiration of the Bush tax cuts mean that many small businesses face tax increases over the next few years.

Now, if you're a Nebraska business owner, you could worry about how all this will effect your business. Or, you could instead choose to take proactive steps for managing and reducing your business tax burden.

One obvious tax planning step to consider, for example, would be operating your business as an S corporation from this point forward. S corporations can save business owners hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, depending on how much a business usually pays in payroll and income taxes.

And what's more, S corporations are pretty easy to set up by yourself. The process involves three fairly simple steps, which you can read about in the paragraphs that follow.

Step One: Form an Eligible Entity

The eligible entity is the foundation for your S corporation. In most cases, this will be either a limited liability company or a regular corporation. To form an LLC, fill out an Articles of Organization form and submit it to the Nebraska Secretary of State in Lincoln. For a regular corporation, fill out and submit an Articles of Incorporation form to the Secretary of State.

Step Two: Apply for an EIN

The next step in forming an S corporation is applying for an EIN, or Employer Identification Number. To apply, fill out an SS-4 form and submit it to the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS website provides downloadable versions of this form. You should receive your EIN within a a month or two.

Step Three: Make the S Corporation Election

You can elect S corporation treatment for your business once you receive your Employer Identification Number. Fill out a 2553 form, also available from the IRS website, and submit it to the Internal Revenue Service Center in Ogden, Utah. This form tells the IRS that you want your business to be treated using the tax laws in Subchapter S of the Internal Revenue Code. Once the IRS receives your submission, it will check that you followed correct procedure in making the election, and that your business is eligible to make the election before you receive S corporation status.

If you would like more detailed instructions about how to set up your own S corporation in Nebraska, my affordable downloadable e-books may just be exactly what you need. I wrote two versions of the do-it-yourself e-book kit, one for businesses using an LLC as their S corporation foundation and another e-book for businesses using a corporation.

Tip: I recommend you use an LLC as the platform for your S corporation. An LLC makes for easier administration.

Kit Version 1: LLC

The LLC do-it-yourself kit is an alternative to paying an accountant or lawyer to set up your s corporation for you. It has clear, easy-to-follow steps that detail the set-up process. It also explains the positives and negatives associated with forming an LLC in Nebraska. As an added bonus, I included two sets of sample LLC operating agreements. One set is for single member (or single owner) LLCs and the other is for multiple member (multiple owner) LLCs.

Kit Version 2: Corporation

If you decide to use a corporation rather than an LLC as the foundation for your S corporation, the corporation version of my do-it-yourself kit can help you with the set-up. Like the LLC kit, it explains the positives and negatives of incorporating in Nebraska and how to balance them. It provides detailed set up instructions as well as a set of sample corporate bylaws. These bylaws can be used by you or your lawyer as an aide when creating your corporation's bylaws.