Small business tax filing in Franklin

Partnership and S corporation returns are due on the 15th day of the third month after the tax year ends, which is March 15 for a calendar-year business. That covers Form 1065 and Form 1120-S. A C corporation filing Form 1120 has one more month: the 15th day of the fourth month.

Tennessee runs on its own calendar. The franchise and excise tax return is due on the 15th day of the fourth month after the books close, so April 15 for a calendar year, and the state allows a seven-month extension. The Tennessee business tax is also due on the 15th day of the fourth month after the fiscal year ends.

Then there are the January forms. Form 1099-NEC for contractors you paid is due January 31, and for payments made after 2025 the reporting threshold rose to $2,000.

Put together, a calendar-year S corporation in Williamson County can face a January, a March and an April deadline before its owner files a personal return. We work to those dates for business clients and start on the return from the books, which is easier when we keep them through our bookkeeping service.

Tennessee charges two taxes on most entities through one return: an excise tax of 6.5% on Tennessee taxable income, and a franchise tax of 0.25% on Tennessee net worth. The franchise tax has a $100 minimum, so even a business with no profit pays something.

The franchise side changed recently. Public Chapter 950, passed in 2024, removed the property measure that used to sit on Schedule G for tax years ending on or after January 1, 2024. Franchise tax is now figured on net worth alone. Businesses that had paid on the old property measure could claim refunds for earlier years, but that window ran from May 15 to November 30, 2024, and it has closed.

Larger filers also make quarterly estimated payments. The requirement applies when combined franchise and excise liability was $5,000 or more in both the prior year and the current year. Missing that test is easy if the books lag behind, which is one reason we prepare this return alongside the federal one rather than as an afterthought. Rates and rules here come from the Tennessee Department of Revenue.

A business owes Tennessee business tax when it does business in a Tennessee county or city and has $100,000 or more in gross receipts there. That threshold applies to tax years ending on or after December 31, 2023, under Public Chapter 377.

Below it, there is still a step. Receipts above $3,000 and under $100,000 call for a minimal activity license from the county or city clerk, which carries a $15 fee. Above the threshold, the tax has a state part and a city part, both filed with the Department of Revenue, and the minimum tax is $22.

Two details trip people up. Counties no longer impose the business tax at all; that ended with Public Chapter 313 of 2013, effective January 1, 2014. And each city decides for itself, with 215 municipalities levying one according to the Department’s June 2026 business tax manual. A business with an address outside city limits has no city business tax to file. We confirm which of these applies to you before the return is prepared, and the answer changes as receipts grow.

Two federal changes reach most small businesses this year: a higher 1099-NEC threshold and a floor under the qualified business income deduction.

For payments made after 2025, you file Form 1099-NEC for a contractor once you have paid them $2,000 or more, up from the old figure. The form is still due January 31. That means a contractor list built from the year’s payments needs to be ready in early January, and it is only as accurate as the books behind it.

The Section 199A deduction now has a minimum. For tax years beginning after December 31, 2025, a taxpayer with at least $1,000 of qualified business income from a business in which they actively participate can deduct no less than $400, per IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32. The deduction flows to the owner’s personal return, so we look at the entity and the household together.

The old site describes the aim as “precise filing with strategic insight,” and these two items show why both halves matter. The forms have to be right, and the owner needs to know what the new rules mean for next year. The forward-looking half is laid out on our tax planning page.