S-Corp vs. LLC Tax Calculator
Here's the question almost every profitable solo business eventually runs into: should I keep things simple as an LLC, or elect S-Corp status to cut my self-employment tax? This walks the math so you can see roughly where the switch starts paying for itself.
Estimated tax savings per year
- As an LLC, self-employment tax
- As an S-Corp, payroll tax on salary
- Less the added S-Corp costs
Enter your numbers above to see an estimate.
How this works
As a plain LLC, the IRS treats all of your profit as self-employment income, so the full amount gets hit with 15.3% self-employment tax (Social Security up to the annual wage base, plus Medicare on everything).
Elect S-Corp status and the deal changes: you pay yourself a reasonable salary as a W-2 employee, and only that salary carries the 15.3%. The profit left over comes out as distributions that skip self-employment and payroll tax entirely. The savings are roughly 15.3% of whatever profit sits above your salary, minus the real cost of running payroll and filing a second tax return.
The catch is the word reasonable: pay yourself too little to dodge tax and the IRS can reclassify it. The number has to be defensible for the work you actually do.
What this does not include
This is the self-employment / payroll tax picture only. It does not model federal or state income tax, the QBI deduction, the 0.9% additional Medicare surtax, retirement contributions, or health insurance, all of which can shift the real answer.
It also can't judge whether your salary is reasonable, and it ignores the time, bookkeeping, and complexity an S-Corp adds. Treat the result as a directional estimate, then run your real numbers past a CPA before you file an election.
A quick example, and how to read it
With the numbers loaded here, $120,000 of profit and a $60,000 salary, the savings come entirely from the profit that sits above your salary. As a plain LLC, that slice gets the full 15.3% self-employment hit. As an S-Corp, it comes out as distributions that skip it. Subtract the added cost of payroll and a second tax return, and what's left is the estimated savings.
Now drag the salary up toward total profit and watch the savings shrink to nothing. There's no distribution left to protect. That's the real lesson: an S-Corp only earns its keep once profit comfortably clears a reasonable salary, which is why it rarely makes sense until you're well into the six figures.
The fuller version of this decision, including what "reasonable" has to mean and why mixing business and personal money undoes it, is in business finance.