Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

Q:

Subject: additional paid in capital

 

C-corp has accumilated additional paid in capital,  can this capital be taken out of the corp by shareholder? is this taxable to the shareholder or just the shareholder taking out his equity?

 

thanks

A:

This is the kind of thing you should be discussing with your personal professional tax advisor rather than relying on  advice from strangers on the internet.

Basically, any time you are repaid for your capital investment in a corp, you will need to show that on Schedule D of your 1040.  It won’t necessarily be taxable because you can deduct your cost basis that you allocate to that particular payment, which is normally the exact same amount for payments taken from the Paid in Capital account.  It’s not costly tax-wise, but is a big nuisance to have to report.

This is why it is generally better to keep the capital accounts as low as possible and use loans to transfer money between the corp and the owners. None of the principal payments in either direction has to be reported on your tax return, although interest payments obviously do.  This is something I learned almost 30 years ago, when I first started working on corporate tax returns, and any experienced tax pro should understand.

Your personal tax pro can give you more specific advice for our unique situation.

Good luck.

Kerry Kerstetter