Please Help Me With S - Corp Loss

Feb 19, 2021 Last reply: 5 years ago 1 Replies

I have a small business which is an S-Corp which I started in 2000. I do the taxes for it and for myself. (I had a pro help me the first year but have simply plugged in numbers since then.) I am the sole owner and primary employee though I do have some parttime help. Nothing is passive and all investment is at risk. (It's a business with a leased space in an office building, costly equipment, etc., not something in a basement.)



The S-Corp has been profitable for 20 years. I take the 1120S profit and put it on the one and only K1 (mine). I file a paper 1040. The profit from the K1 goes on Schedule E and then used to go on to the 1040. In the last couple of years it goes from E onto the Schedule 1, Additional income.



Due to the pandemic, the business has been shut down since last March so for 2020 there is a loss of $39K+.



Please walk me through how to handle this on my 1040.



First of all, my basis in the business consists of $10K I put in in 2000 and $20K I put in late last year, total of $30K. I have the 20K on the books as a loan; I could decide that it's stock if there is some advantage. Perhaps for our purposes here it may not matter.



I understand I cannot take more than 30K of loss unless and until I put more money into the business. But I don't even want to take that much. I only want to take enough that, combined with other deductions (IRA, HSA, Standard) zeroes out my TI or at least low enough that my tax is zero and I get all withholding back.



So my question in a nutshell is, with the K1 showing about (39K), where do I show this and that I'm only applying some lesser figure onto 2020 taxes? Is there another form? Something I'm not noticing on E? Or do I just put the lesser figure on E?



How do I carry it over to next year? And if I wanted to carry some back to 2019 how would I do that? TIA


Did some reading about basis and I see it's not just stock and the recent loan. I made up a spread sheet where each year's profit added basis and each draw reduced it. Also, reduced by a small Section 179 item reported on one year's K1. (Fortunately my draws were usually made equal to a prior year's net profit, so the work to make the spreadsheet wasn't too bad.) Taking all into account, including the stock, I came up with a basis of 20,736 *before* the 20K loan. So as I sit here, if I did it correctly, my basis is 40,736. So hypothetically I could take the full 39K loss. BUT I don't need that much to offset other income. Please help me with how to do this.

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