Tax Planning Questionnaire for S-Corp Owners (Template)

A tax planning questionnaire is the intake form your firm sends an S-corp owner before anyone drafts the planning memo. Most versions ask for everything and feed nothing. The owner fills in forty lines, the preparer skims them, and the memo still gets built from last year's return and a phone call.

The version below works the other way round. It's grouped by the six sections of the S-corp planning memo, and every question names the decision it feeds. If a question doesn't change a number or a recommendation in the memo, it isn't on the form.

Copy it into your portal or an email, send it before the planning meeting, and you'll walk in with the source figures the memo needs instead of collecting them in the room.

How the questionnaire maps to the planning memo

The S-corp planning memo has six sections, and this questionnaire mirrors them one for one. The memo argues each section. The questionnaire only gathers what that argument needs.

• Salary produces the officer compensation figure and says whether a reasonable compensation study is due.
• Distributions produces the timing and amount of owner distributions, checked against basis.
• Retirement plan produces the contribution amount and plan type.
• Accountable plan produces the reimbursement policy and what runs through it.
• Estimated tax produces the quarterly payment amounts and the safe harbor they rely on.
• State produces the list of states where the owner or the company has a filing question.

An owner-and-entity block sits in front of all six. It tells you which sections apply before you read the rest.

The tax planning questionnaire (copy-ready)

Paste the blocks below into your engagement portal or an email to the owner. Keep the "Feeds" lines if the owner is detail-minded; strip them if you'd rather keep the form short. Either way, keep them in your own copy, because they're how the preparer knows where each answer goes.

Owner and entity basics

• What is the company's legal name, and what date did the S election take effect? Feeds: which tax year's rules apply and whether the election is on file. Form 2553 is due no more than 2 months and 15 days after the start of the tax year the election takes effect (Form 2553 instructions).
• Who owns the company, and in what percentages? Feeds: every section. Distributions follow ownership share for share; salary follows the work each owner does, and retirement contributions follow W-2 wages, not ownership percentage.
• What is your role, and roughly how many hours a week do you work in the business? Feeds: Salary.
• Is your spouse or another family member on payroll? What do they do? Feeds: Salary and Retirement plan.

Salary

• What officer W-2 wages have you been paid so far this year, and how often does payroll run? Feeds: the salary figure and the year-end payroll adjustment. For background on how owners set their own pay, see how to pay yourself as an S-corp owner.
• List the duties you personally perform, with an estimate of hours on each. Feeds: the reasonable compensation analysis behind the salary figure.
• If you stopped doing this work, who would you hire to replace you, and what would you expect to pay them? Feeds: the market comparison in the salary figure.
• Do you have a reasonable compensation study on file? What year? Feeds: whether a new study is due before the salary figure is set.
• Do you have W-2 wages from any other employer this year? How much? Feeds: the individual return. The company's own Social Security cost is figured on the wages it pays, whatever you earn elsewhere.
• Will the company pay you wages close to $184,500 this year? Feeds: the Social Security cost of any salary increase, since the 2026 wage base caps that tax at $184,500 of wages from each employer (SSA announcement, October 24, 2025), while Medicare's 1.45% applies to all wages with no cap (IRC §3101(b)).

Distributions

• What distributions have you taken so far this year, and what do you expect to take before year-end? Feeds: distribution timing.
• Does anyone track your stock and debt basis? Who, and where is it kept? Feeds: the stock-basis check before any distribution recommendation.
• Are there loans between you and the company, in either direction? Feeds: Distributions, since a loan and a distribution are recorded differently.
• If there's more than one owner, are distributions paid in proportion to ownership? Feeds: Distributions, since uneven distributions raise a question the memo has to answer before recommending more.

Retirement plan

• What retirement plan does the company sponsor today, if any? Feeds: plan type.
• How much have you deferred into it so far this year? Feeds: the remaining room under the 2026 elective deferral limit of $24,500 (IRS Notice 2025-67).
• How old will you be on December 31, 2026? Feeds: catch-up eligibility. For 2026 the age-50 catch-up is $8,000, and owners aged 60 through 63 get $11,250 in its place (IRS Notice 2025-67).
• Does the company have employees who would be eligible for the plan? How many? Feeds: plan design and employer contribution cost.

Accountable plan

• Does the company have a written accountable plan? If so, attach it. Feeds: the reimbursement policy. An accountable plan needs a business connection, substantiation, and return of any excess within a reasonable period (Treas. Reg. §1.62-2(c)-(f)).
• Do you use part of your home regularly and exclusively for the business? Roughly what share? Feeds: which home office costs could run through the plan.
• Do you keep a mileage log for business driving in a personal vehicle? Feeds: the mileage reimbursement. The 2026 business standard rate is 72.5 cents a mile for January 1 through June 30 and 76 cents for July 1 through December 31 (IRS newsroom and mid-year increase announcement).
• Which business costs have you paid personally this year and not been reimbursed for? Feeds: which unreimbursed costs can still be substantiated and reimbursed under the plan before year-end.

Estimated tax

• What was your total federal tax and your AGI on last year's return? Feeds: the safe harbor. The owner avoids the underpayment penalty by paying, through withholding and timely quarterly installments, at least the lesser of 90% of this year's tax or 100% of last year's tax (110% if last year's AGI was over $150,000, or $75,000 married filing separately) (IRC §6654(d)(1)).
• How much federal income tax has been withheld from your wages so far this year? Feeds: the remaining estimated payment amount.
• Which 2026 estimated payments have you made, and in what amounts? Feeds: the payment schedule. Individual due dates are April 15, June 15 and September 15, 2026, and January 15, 2027 (Form 1040-ES).
• Do you expect a large swing in income this year, such as a sale, a big contract, or a slow quarter? Feeds: whether the current-year test beats the prior-year test.

State

• Which state do you live in, and do you plan to move in the next 12 months? Feeds: the resident-state filing question.
• In which states does the company have employees, customers, property or inventory? Feeds: the state filing footprint.
• Has the company made a pass-through entity tax election in any state? Which years? Feeds: State, and the salary and estimated tax math that depends on it.
• Do you spend part of the year working from a state other than the one you live in? Feeds: State, since where the work happens can matter as much as where you live.

Document request list

Send this with the questionnaire so the owner answers and uploads in the same reply. For a fuller walk-through of the payroll records an owner should already have, see S-corp payroll requirements for owners.

• Last two years' individual returns (Form 1040) and S-corp returns (Form 1120-S), with the owner's K-1s
• Year-to-date profit and loss statement and balance sheet
• Payroll register year to date, plus the quarterly Forms 941 filed this year
• Prior-year Forms W-2 and W-3
• Retirement plan statements showing deferrals and employer contributions year to date
• The written accountable plan, if one exists, and this year's reimbursement records and mileage log
• Confirmations for every 2026 estimated payment made
• The most recent reasonable compensation study, if one exists

From answers to a signed-off memo

A questionnaire earns its keep after the owner hits send. Each answer becomes a source figure in the file, with the document it came from. Each recommendation in the memo then points to the figures it rests on, so a Reviewer reading the salary section can see the duty list, the hours and the market comparison without opening a separate email thread.

That's the same discipline a reasonable compensation study already runs on. In a TracePrep Study, every figure traces to its source at field level, each preparer adjustment carries a documented rationale, a qualified Reviewer controls the conclusion, and finalized evidence stays with the firm. To see that record on a real Study, see how a Study is built.

TracePrep is building a tax-planning workflow on the same record, and it's in development today. Until it ships, this questionnaire works in whatever system you already use: a portal form, a shared document, or a plain email. The timing question, when in the year to send it and how it fits a planning calendar, is covered in proactive tax planning for firms.

Conclusion

A planning memo is only as traceable as the intake behind it. Send the questionnaire, collect the documents with it, and every recommendation in the memo can point back to an answer and a source.

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Figures and rules on this page are as of September 23, 2026, from the sources cited inline. Not tax advice: limits change each year, and the right answer for any owner depends on their facts.

TracePrep is a software product from TracePrep Inc., not a CPA firm. This content is operator experience for educational purposes; it is not tax advice and has not been reviewed by a licensed CPA. Consult a qualified tax professional for guidance on your specific situation. Source citations in TracePrep workpapers support audit defense but do not guarantee IRS outcomes.