Greater Nashville CPA for S-Corps, LLCs, and Partnerships

Flat-fee tax preparation and year-round advisory for Tennessee LLCs, S-corps, and partnerships, from a licensed CPA in Franklin who has run a business himself. Whether you're deciding if an S-corp makes sense, cleaning up a return that never quite matched the books, or just tired of a preparer who disappears after April 15, this is where it gets sorted out.

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Sound Familiar?

Most business owners I meet aren't doing anything wrong. They're doing what their software, their previous preparer, or a friend at a networking event told them to do, and nobody ever sat down to check whether it still fits. See if one of these is you:

  • The consultant who crossed $100,000 in profit two years ago and is still a sole proprietor, paying self-employment tax on every dollar.

  • The contractor with two crews who elected S-corp status years ago, never set a real salary, and takes everything as distributions. That's the profile the IRS looks for.

  • The medical practice or agency with three partners, an operating agreement nobody has read since 2019, and no one tracking anyone's basis.

  • The online seller whose books say one thing, whose bank account says another, and whose inventory sits in warehouses in three states.

  • The owner who moved to Tennessee, formed an LLC, and just received a franchise and excise tax notice for a return they didn't know existed.

  • Anyone whose CPA files the return in April and is never heard from again until the following February.

Each of these has a fix, and the fix is rarely dramatic. It's usually a structure decision, a payroll adjustment, or a year of clean books that turns a stressful April into a predictable one.

Is an S-corp actually right for your business?

S-corp status can save real money in payroll taxes, but it also adds a payroll obligation, a reasonable-salary requirement, and a separate business return, and in Tennessee it changes your franchise and excise tax bill without making it go away. There's a break-even point, and it depends on your profit, your salary, and your plans for the next few years. I model the actual numbers for your business before recommending anything, and if the answer is "stay where you are," I'll tell you that too.

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How It Works

Step 1: Tell me about the business. Fill out the short form below with the basics: what the business does, how it's currently structured, roughly what it earns, and what prompted you to reach out. I'll follow up to schedule a brief intro call.

Step 2: Secure upload and review. You share your prior returns, your bookkeeping file or bank statements, and your entity documents through an encrypted client portal. I review how the business is structured, how you're paying yourself, whether the books support the return, and what Tennessee is expecting from you that you may not know about.

Step 3: Itemized flat fee, then a plan. You get a written, itemized quote before any work begins. No hourly meter, no surprise bills. From there, most business clients move into an ongoing relationship: an annual planning meeting to make decisions before year-end rather than after, and for owners who want it, quarterly estimates recalculated from actual income and monthly accounting so the books are always current.

What Tennessee Adds to the Decision

Tennessee has no personal income tax, which is wonderful, and it leads a lot of new arrivals to assume the state doesn't tax their business at all. It does. It just does it at the business level, where out-of-state preparers and DIY software routinely miss it.

Franchise and excise tax. If your business is an LLC, an S-corp, a limited partnership, or a corporation doing business in Tennessee, it generally owes the state's franchise and excise tax unless a specific exemption applies. Sole proprietors and general partnerships generally don't. How the IRS classifies your business doesn't settle the question: a single-member LLC that's "disregarded" on your federal return is still treated as its own taxpayer by Tennessee in most cases.

What it costs. The excise tax is 6.5 percent of your Tennessee net earnings after the state's required adjustments. The franchise tax is 0.25 percent of your net worth (assets minus liabilities, on a book basis), with a $100 minimum. Because the franchise tax is based on net worth rather than profit, an entity can owe that $100 minimum in a year it lost money.

Why this changes how you pay yourself. Tennessee doesn't treat every form of owner pay the same way. Wages run through payroll generally reduce the starting point for the excise tax. Guaranteed payments to partners generally do not, because Tennessee adds them back when it computes a partnership's net earnings. That means the same business can carry a different Tennessee tax bill depending on how it's structured and how the owners are compensated, which is exactly the kind of thing to model before choosing an entity, not after.

The exemptions, and their fine print. Tennessee exempts certain entities, including some family-owned entities that hold investments or farmland and entities whose owners accept full personal liability for the business's debts. Each exemption has specific statutory requirements and paperwork. Owning rental property or farmland by itself doesn't qualify, and giving up your liability protection to save the tax is the wrong trade for most operating businesses. But knowing these exemptions exist matters if you also hold real estate, and I check for them as a matter of course.

The dormant-entity trap. Any entity registered with the state can owe the $100 minimum franchise tax even if it's sitting idle, including the LLC you formed for a side project and forgot about. Miss the filing and the penalty grows 5 percent for every 30 days late, up to 25 percent, plus interest, and an extension to file is not an extension to pay. Properly shutting an entity down means terminating its Tennessee registration and filing a final return, not just letting it lapse. If you have one of these lurking, the cleanup is routine and I do it often.

Business tax. Separate from franchise and excise, Tennessee and many of its cities levy a business tax on gross sales, with rates that depend on what your business does and whether you sell retail or wholesale. It applies once your sales in a given county or city pass a threshold, and even smaller businesses may need a minimal-activity license. It's small, but it's easy to miss, and it's one more return.

None of this should scare you off Tennessee. It's a business-friendly state. It just asks you to know the rules, and most owners were never told them.

Partnerships and Multi-Member LLCs

Businesses with more than one owner have a second layer of complexity that single-owner businesses never see: every dollar that comes in or goes out has to be allocated correctly among the owners, tracked in each partner's basis and capital account, and reported on K-1s that match the operating agreement. When nobody has kept that up, distributions get taxed that shouldn't be, losses get disallowed that should count, and a partner buyout turns into a months-long reconstruction project.

Before opening my own practice, I prepared partnership and S-corp returns by the hundreds at regional CPA firms in Chattanooga and Charlotte, for businesses ranging from two-partner professional practices to multi-entity groups. Basis schedules, guaranteed payments, special allocations, and the mechanics of bringing in or buying out a partner are everyday work for me, not a specialty I have to look up.

If your partnership's books and K-1s have never been reconciled, that's often the first thing I fix, and it's usually the highest-value hour we spend together.

Review My Partnership Returns

A CPA Who Speaks Your Language as a Business Owner

I'm Josh Yebba, a licensed Tennessee CPA and the owner of Joshua Yebba, CPA, PLLC in Franklin. Before opening my own firm, I spent more than 15 years as a business owner. I still co-own a seasonal youth sports business, which means I've made payroll, argued with a facility landlord, and filed my own S-corp return. When a client tells me cash is tight in February, I don't need it explained.

I combine that with years at regional CPA firms where small business returns were the daily work. The result is a practice built for owners who want more than a filed return: a structure that fits, a salary that's defensible, quarterly estimates that track reality, and a CPA who picks up the phone in October, not just April.

You can meet with me in person at my Cool Springs office or work with me entirely online. Either way, the experience is the same: secure document sharing, electronic signatures, and answers that arrive when you need them.

Common Questions

  • It depends on the numbers, not on a rule of thumb. An S-corp saves payroll tax on profit above a reasonable salary, but it adds payroll, a separate business return, and administrative cost, and it changes rather than eliminates Tennessee's franchise and excise tax. For many owners the savings outweigh the costs once profit is comfortably above what a reasonable salary would be; for others it's a wash or a loss. I model your actual figures, including the qualified business income deduction, before recommending anything.

  • The IRS expects an owner who works in the business to be paid a wage comparable to what the business would pay someone else for the same work, before taking distributions. There's no safe-harbor percentage. The right number depends on your role, your industry, and what the business can support, and it should be documented. Owners who take everything as distributions are the classic audit profile, and fixing that is one of the most common things I do for new clients.

  • Often not. In many situations a late election can be made effective for the current year if the requirements are met, and I handle the filing. The bigger question is whether the election makes sense for you, which is what the feasibility analysis answers.

  • If your business is an LLC, S-corp, LP, or corporation doing business in Tennessee, almost certainly yes, regardless of how you're taxed federally. See the section above for how it works. If you've never filed one, don't panic: the cleanup is routine, and it's better to address it before a notice arrives than after.

  • Both jobs have to get done, and they're different. Bookkeeping keeps the transactions categorized and reconciled every month; tax and advisory work turns those books into decisions. I offer monthly accounting for clients who want one relationship for both, and I work alongside your existing bookkeeper if you already have one you like. What I won't do is prepare a return from books that don't reconcile, because that's how problems get filed.

  • Every engagement is a flat fee, itemized line by line and quoted in writing before any work begins. Business engagements start at $1,500 for return preparation, with S-corp feasibility, election filing, and monthly accounting priced separately as their own line items. You will always know the number before we start.

Let's Get Your Business Set Up Right

Whether you're weighing an S-corp election, catching up on Tennessee filings you didn't know about, or ready for a CPA who plans ahead instead of filing behind, start with the form below. Tell me a little about the business and I'll reach out to you. No obligation, no pressure.

Existing client or time-sensitive issue? Call (615) 707-0166.

Your information is confidential and will only be used to respond to your inquiry.