Texas Franchise Tax ReportName the May filing

Most owners arrive looking for one form. The Comptroller index describes three jobs that can sit on the same May day. There is the tax, which starts only when revenue clears the threshold for that report year. There is the annual report that carries the computation when a computation is due. And there is a public information report, or an ownership report, which an entity at or under the threshold can still have to file even though the tax is zero.

Pull those three apart and May stops feeling like a second tax system bolted onto the federal return. The revenue figure is copied from the federal form the election already points at. Disregarded, partnership, S election, C corporation. Name that election before anyone copies a line, or the Texas number inherits the wrong return.

For 2026 and 2027 the line where tax begins is 2650000 dollars of annualized total revenue. For 2024 and 2025 that line was 2470000 dollars. A number with no year attached is how a reader applies the wrong band. Being under the line for the year you are filing can mean no tax and no annual report. It does not, by itself, mean the information report is finished.

We prepare the filing that is actually yours from books the bank has matched. A month that still disagrees with the bank is not the source of a revenue figure. Payday, once payroll is set up, is run by a provider you keep. Sending the paychecks is not the May work.

They get muddled, so here they are apart. A report filed after the due date draws 50 dollars on that report, whatever the tax is, and the charge can apply even when no tax was due. Tax paid between one and thirty days late adds 5 percent of the tax. After thirty days the add-on is 10 percent. Interest on unpaid tax starts on day 61. None of that is a promise that any of it comes off again.

The index also names notices. One is a notice of intent to forfeit the right to transact business when a filing was missed. Another is a notice that registration was forfeited for an earlier year. The repair printed with those notices is to file and pay what the notice names, or, if the entity is at or under the threshold, to file the information report or the ownership report for that year.

A bank, a buyer, or a title company can see a forfeited status and stop a closing while you are still looking for the missing page. Work in this order. Read the notice. Find the filing it names. Decide whether the reinstatement itself needs a Texas lawyer. We will not put a date on how long a reinstatement takes, and we will not give the legal answer.

An extension request is a separate piece of paper from the report. What that request moves, and what it leaves on the original day, lives in the instructions for the request. A non-electronic-transfer filer can see an extended day in November. An entity that paid 10000 dollars or more in franchise tax in the prior year pays electronically, and its first extended day can fall in August, with a second extension into November. We do not treat a link to an extension form as a description of your own request.

The tax, when there is one, is on margin unless you qualify for the EZ computation and choose it. The four allowed paths are seventy percent of revenue, revenue after the cost of the goods sold, revenue after compensation, or revenue after a flat 1000000 dollars. Total revenue starts from the federal revenue amounts, minus the exclusions the statute allows.

Cost of goods sold generally covers what it took to acquire or produce tangible property and real property sold in the ordinary course. A company that only sells services often has nothing to put on that line, with a few industry exceptions. Compensation includes W-2 wages and cash paid to officers, directors, owners, partners, and employees, including net distributive income to natural persons, inside a per-person cap, plus benefits such as health coverage and retirement. It does not include 1099 labor. For 2026 and 2027 the compensation cap printed on the index is 480000 dollars. For 2024 and 2025 it was 450000 dollars.

The long-form rates are 0.375 percent for retail or wholesale and 0.75 percent for everything else, and those rates apply to margin, not to raw revenue. The EZ computation is available when annualized total revenue is 20 million dollars or under, at 0.331 percent, and choosing it gives up the margin deductions. Being inside the band means the form is available. It does not mean the long form was compared, and it does not mean EZ is the smaller tax. We will not declare a winner for an entity we have not seen.

Two companies with the same owner are not assumed to file as one. The index points at common-owner material without printing a complete test a stranger could apply from the names on the certificates. Both sets of books have to be in the room. A series company and a single-member company are still companies. A sole owner who never formed a company generally does not file this report at all.

The rows we carry are the annual report and the tax computation when one is due, the information report when no tax is due, and the work of finding the Comptroller account from the entity record rather than from a guessed number. WebFile is the Comptroller's own door. A letter that never arrived, a stale address, or an entity record that does not match the company you think you are filing are checks, not a number we invent.

Three jobs leave. A statement a lender wants signed as an opinion on the financial statements goes to a firm that can sign it. An IRS collection notice is not this report. The legal side of a reinstatement goes to a Texas lawyer. We will say which row you are on before May is spent in the wrong conversation.

Stopping operations and ending the account are different. An out-of-state entity that ends its Texas nexus files a final report and pays any amount due within 60 days of losing that nexus. A Texas entity that is terminating, converting, or merging files its final report and pays in the year it plans to do that, before a certificate of account status. Treating a quiet bank account as a closed account is the step owners skip.

Every Texan knows the worry of a letter that says a right to do business is at risk. We feel that worry with you. Then we ask for the notice, the report year, and the federal return, because those three are what the filing is actually made of.

Does a Texas company file if it owes nothing?

Owing nothing and filing nothing are different. At or under the no-tax-due line for the report year, the annual report can drop away and the information report can remain. The line for 2026 and 2027 is 2650000 dollars. Use the report year you are filing, not the calendar month you happen to be standing in.

Where does the revenue figure come from?

From the federal form the election points at. Name that election before anyone copies a revenue line onto the Texas report. If the books and that return disagree, the disagreement is the work, not a number to average.

Does an extension also move the payment?

Sometimes the request moves the report and still wants most of the tax on the original day. The instructions for that year's request are the text that answers it. We will not summarize a request we have not read.

Can I sign contracts while the status says forfeited?

A counterparty that checks status will see the forfeiture. Whether a particular contract can be signed is a legal question. We will help name the missing filing. We will not give that legal answer.

Is the EZ rate always cheaper?

No. The 0.331 percent rate applies to revenue inside a 20 million dollar band, and it gives up margin deductions. The long-form rates apply to margin. Which one is smaller depends on the margin the instructions allow for that entity.

May filings here are Steven Palmieri's work in the Tax CFO role. The first screen already pairs that role with the May filing. The books, the federal return, the May report, and the choices still open in the year come from one practice. Those four live in one file. The year is read from the top, so a compensation choice or a purchase is dated before May arrives to copy whatever the year became.

Hearings are outside this work, and we do not attend one for you. An opinion on the financial statements is not a document we sign. We do prepare the report from a return that already exists, and we say when the return is not ready to copy. If the fit is poor, including a reinstatement that really wants a lawyer, you hear that before anyone talks about a next step.

The Comptroller franchise index is the public page the figures were read from. Following that link leaves this site. This page is not that office. Affiliation with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts is absent here.