I Don't Care What the IRS Says, There Are No Federal Entities

Not for my purposes, anyway. Back in 2016, I made the argument that the IRS should "stop using state-law designations": 

My proposal is not abolishing corporate tax – that’s a much longer post and one I am not sure I’d agree with.  Instead, the proposal is to have entities choose from options that are linked the Internal Revenue Code, and not to a particular entity. Thus, we would have (1) entity taxation, called C Tax, where an entity chooses to pay tax at the entity level, which would be typical C Corp taxation; (2) pass-through taxation, called K Tax, which is what we usually think of as partnership tax; and (3) we get rid of S corps, which can now be LLCs, anyway, which would allow an entity to choose S Tax. 

This post deals with the tax code, which means I am in over my head, and because this is tax related, it means the solution is a lot more complicated than this proposal.  But now that the code provisions are not really linked to the state law entity, I think we should try refer to state entities as state entities, and federal tax status with regard to federal tax status.  Under such a code, it would be a little easier for people to understand the concept behind state entity status, and it would make more sense to people that a “C Corp” does mean “publicly traded corporation” (a far-too common misunderstanding).  Thus, we could have C Tax corporations, S Tax LLCs, K Tax LLCs, for example.  We'd know tax status and state-entity status quite simply and we'd separate the concepts. 

We discussed this issue on Saturday at the 2019 AALS Section on Agency, Partnership, LLCs & Unincorporated Associations Program on LLCs. As I taught my first Business Organizations class of the semester, I talked about this and it occurred to me that maybe the better way to think about this is to simply acknowledge that there are no federal entities.  

State law is the origin of all entity types (barring, perhaps, a few minor exceptions), and references to "C Corps" and "S Corps" are not really on target. I concede that the IRS does so, which is a challenge, but it's really unnecessary under today's tax code. That is, with check-the-box options, most entity types can choose whatever tax treatment they wish.  An LLC can choose to be taxed under subchapter S, for example, though it has to meet certain requirements (e.g., can only have one class of "stock"), but the LLC can file Form 2553 an make an S election.  

As such, as I have argued before, I think we should work to keep entity type and tax treatment separate.  Thus, for example, we can have an S-taxed LLC (an LLC that made the S election)  and a K-taxed LLC (an LLC that made a K election for pass-through taxation).  The tax treatment does not "convert" the LLC to a corporation -- or S corp. It simply provides for certain tax treatment.  I really think we'd see some doctrinal improvements if we could get more people to use language that makes clear tax treatment and entity type are separate issues, at least in today's word.   

Entities are creatures of state law. How the federal or state government tax such entities does not change that reality.  It's time we start using more precise language to make that clear.