Business taxes

Be sure to have the following information for your corporation (as of the last day of the fiscal year that you’re filing for):

• General business information: This includes your EIN.
• Company financials: You can learn about year-end financial reports in our guide tax season. If you don’t have any revenue or expenses for the past fiscal year, you might still need to file taxes.
• Company ownership: Your corporation might have shares held by individual shareholders or business entities. Make sure the information reflects the current ownership.
• Additional information: If your company employs people, owns property, operates locally in the US, or operates abroad, you might have additional tax and reporting requirements. Some of the taxes you might want to ask about include:
  • Transfer pricing (if you’re based outside the US).
  • State taxes (if you have business activity in any US state).
  • Sales taxes.
  • Employment taxes.

All Delaware C corporations are required to pay the Delaware franchise tax and to file an annual report, which you can pay online if you want to complete it yourself. Even companies with no revenue in the previous fiscal year should expect to pay some amount. You can file this tax yourself, or work with one of our tax partners, or a tax advisor of your choice.

Delaware franchise tax

You have the option to recalculate your taxes due on the Delaware website.

Delaware sends notices using a calculation method that results in large tax bills for companies with more than 5,000 shares. Most Atlas companies find they pay less tax when they use the Assumed Par Value Capital method instead of the default Authorised Shares method. You can read about these methods on Delaware’s website. If the franchise tax isn’t submitted by 1 March, there is a 200 USD late fee and interest of 1.5% per month on the tax amount originally due.

Pay Delaware franchise tax

Complete the following steps to pay your Delaware franchise tax. You can save your work and return to it later. Make sure to save your session number. The Delaware portal gives you the option of sending this number to an email address for easier access.

• Login to the state of Delaware’s website with your seven digit Delaware Business Entity File Number.
  • You can easily find your company’s file number in two ways:
    • Use Delaware’s entity search tool with your company’s legal name.
    • Find the State of Delaware stamp on the second page of your Filed Certificate of Incorporation. You can find this in the Dashboard.
• Click on the “File annual report” link.
• Enter your company information:
  • Complete the Stock information section to adjust your taxes owed shown in the upper right corner: enter the number of shares your company has issued, your gross assets (your Total assets on your corporate income tax return), and your Asset date (the same as your end of fiscal year). Then click the Recalculate tax button (can take some time to reload).
  • Complete all of the remaining required fields indicated with a red star.
  • If you haven’t adjusted your list of officers or directors since you incorporated, you can find these individuals in your Board Approval document in your Dashboard.
• When all required information is complete, press the green “Continue filing” button to review your information for accuracy.
• After verifying your information is correct, click the green “Proceed” to payment button.
  • You can pay Delaware franchise tax and annual report filing fee either by credit card or ACH.
  • After entering your payment information, push the green “Submit” button to finalise your Delaware state taxes.

• 1 March 2024: Delaware franchise tax due (penalty for late payments: $200 fee and interest of 1.5% per month on the tax amount originally due).
• 15 April 2024: US federal corporate income tax due date.
• 15 October 2024: If you filed for an extension, this is the due date for filing US corporate income taxes.