California 2015: Fill & Download for Free

Here is how this works.Regardless of what you think or what you have done to say “your business no longer exists,” if you have failed to dissolve your company ‘in the eyes of the Franchise Tax board’ (FTB), you still have an active company.If you have an active company, your LLC owes the $800 per year franchise tax.“Yeah, but my LLC has no more assets and the letters LLC mean limited liability company. Go screw yourself, FTB. Come and get me, if you can.”That is probably what you and others like yourself are thinking.I was thinking the same thing when they came after me. I ‘thought’ everything was all wrapped up with closing down my California LLC until I got a notice that they hadn’t received my $800 a year for the past six years.Huh? What?As it turned out, I failed to fill out one of their stupid forms to “officially” tell them the business was no longer in operation.Because of that mistake, they wanted six years of back fees plus taxes and penalties.I was very tempted to ignore the demand for payment, at the time, believing my LLC had protected me personally for any debts it might have owed (but didn’t have the assets to pay).I consulted an attorney on this matter and was advised that while ‘for the most part’ I was right. An LLC protects you personally against debts, however, when it comes to taxes, it does not. The attorney told me that in the worse case scenario, the FTB could place a lien on my personal property (i.e. house) and freeze my other liquid assets.I wound up paying the FTB.Of course, do not rely on this answer. You should check with your own attorney as far as how to proceed, but I believe you are personally responsible for paying the back taxes.Please see the following link to dissolve your LLC with the CA Secretary of State:http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-3--4-7.pdf

First there is no way a CA LLC owes no tax. CA charges a minimum $800 franchise fee every year to every LLC, even if the LLC had absolutely zero activity. Yes you need to pay. CA FTB is not going to drop this, pay them and I recommend in the future hire a tax professional to assist you with your tax compliance.

Mike Emeigh is correct that a bonus earned while living in California, would normally be considered by your employer to be considered California wages.From the CA FTB website:Wages and salaries have a source where the services are performed. The source of this income is not affected by either of the following:The location of the employer where the payment is issuedYour location when you receive paymentResidents - Include all wages and salaries earned while a resident, regardless of where the services were performed.Nonresidents - Include the income for services performed in California.That is the key to how your bonus will likely be taxed, because whatever your employer reports on your W2 is going to be presumed correct by the respective states. If the employer considers the bonus is earned after you leave CA and reports the bonus as WA wages, then that is how you are going to be taxed by the states.If you moved to WA in December 2015 and stayed in WA for all of 2016, then probably no one is ever going to question that your wages were WA wages. If you move to WA in Dec 2015, receive your bonus in Jan 2016 and then move back to CA, it will be pretty much impossible to make an argument that the bonus is WA compensation, especially if it is a significant amount and is tied to performance in 2015 while you lived in CA.The fact that you know you have a bonus payout coming says to me, that you have already performed the services required to receive the bonus and obviously performed those services while a CA resident, but I don't know the specifics of your bonus plan and it could be there are arguments both ways. I would probably take Users advice and take a copy of your bonus plan to a tax professional to consider all the specifics and help determine if you have CA or WA sourced income.