Startup business owners must consider the legal and tax considerations associated with selecting a particular type of business structure. This is the fifth part of a series of blogs on the tax treatment of business entities. This final segment will address the tax treatment of S corporations.

S corporations are entities that elect to pass corporate income, losses, deductions, and credits through to their shareholders who report any flow-through income and losses on their personal tax returns and taxed at individual income tax rates, similar to a partnership. Thus, S corporations avoid double taxation on corporate income, unlike C corporations. However, S corporations are responsible for tax on some capital gains and passive income at the corporate level. The rules for Subchapter S corporations are found in Subchapter S of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code.