Did you find good quantitative sources for this? I'm interested in the topic but worried it might be too anecdotal without solid numbers to support the analysis.

Yes, there's excellent quantitative research available! The Brookings Institution has published several data-driven studies on stadium financing and economic impacts. There's also a comprehensive paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that analyzes dozens of stadium projects with detailed financial metrics. For your presentation, I'd recommend using the Congressional Research Service report that breaks down the tax subsidy costs at the federal level - it has great charts showing the effective taxpayer contribution to various stadiums built in the last 20 years. These sources provide plenty of hard numbers to support the policy analysis.

GILTI is interesting but might be too complex for a student presentation unless you're already familiar with international tax. QBI might be more accessible if you're not a tax specialist.

Happy to share! My chart includes: 1. Tax form(s) required for each classification 2. Self-employment/payroll tax implications 3. Deductibility of health insurance premiums 4. Retirement plan options 5. Pass-through taxation vs. entity-level taxation 6. Ownership restrictions 7. Tax year requirements 8. Reasonable compensation requirements (for S-Corps) 9. Fringe benefits availability 10. Loss limitation rules I also added a column for state-specific considerations since some states have additional taxes or requirements for certain LLC classifications.

Did you include anything about QBI (Qualified Business Income) deduction differences? That's a huge factor for choosing between classifications now with the 20% deduction for pass-through entities!

The IRS website is practically useless for this! I spent hours digging through their publications and still couldn't figure out if I should elect S-Corp status. Publication 3402 is supposedly about LLCs but barely scratches the surface of what business owners actually need to know. User-created resources like the OP's chart are way more practical.

I've found the IRS Tax Information For Partnerships publication (#541) and Tax Information For Corporations (#542) to be somewhat helpful, but you have to read them together to get the full picture for LLCs. They're not designed for comparing options side-by-side like a chart would be. The problem is they're written for tax professionals, not regular business owners.

Do you know if Cash App Taxes handles education credits well? My 1098-T has some scholarship money listed on it too and I'm not sure how that affects things.

Cash App Taxes definitely handles education credits well! It walks you through determining which education credit (American Opportunity or Lifetime Learning) is best for you based on your situation. For scholarships on your 1098-T, it will guide you through which portions might be taxable vs. non-taxable depending on what the money was used for (tuition vs. room and board, etc.). The interface asks clear questions to help sort this out - much more straightforward than you'd expect. Their help articles explain things in simple terms too if you get confused at any point.

This! I used this last year and got TurboTax completely free. They hide this option when you go directly to their websites.

Exactly! These companies deliberately hide their free offerings that they're required to provide through the IRS Free File program. It's called "dark patterns" in website design - they make the truly free versions hard to find if you go directly to their sites, then trick you into their paid versions. Always start at the official IRS Free File page (irs.gov/freefile) and click through from there. That way you're guaranteed to get the truly free version if you qualify based on income. Saved me $80 last year for essentially the same exact service.

Do you know if this works if you used the free version? I always use different free services each year depending on which one will let me file for free, so I'm not sure if they save returns for the free users.

Yes, it generally works even with the free versions! I've used the free version of TurboTax for years, and they still save all my returns. The only difference is how long they store them - some free versions might only keep them for 3 years while paid versions might store them for 7+ years. Even if you used different services, it's worth checking all of them. Just make sure you're logging in with the same email you used when you filed in 2020. Sometimes people forget which email they used for tax services.

This worked for me! My return kept getting rejected and I was panicking. Tried the $0 AGI trick and it went through immediately. Thanks for the tip!

Are there any downsides to filing when you don't have to? Like does it trigger any extra scrutiny or anything?

There are really no downsides to filing when not required. It doesn't trigger extra scrutiny or increase your audit risk. The IRS actually appreciates voluntary compliance. Filing an unnecessary return might be a slight inconvenience, but many tax software options are free for simple returns with low income. Plus, getting in the habit of filing annually helps you understand the process better for when you do have more complex tax situations in the future.

Yes, that changes things! Any amount of capital gains (including crypto) technically requires filing, regardless of how small the amount. The IRS is particularly focused on cryptocurrency transactions. Even $200 in crypto gains should be reported.