The following information is provided for educational purposes only and in no way constitutes
legal, tax, or financial advice.
For legal, tax, or financial advice specific to your business needs, we encourage you to
consult with a licensed attorney and/or CPA in your State.
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No part of this Lesson may be redistributed, copied, modified or adapted without prior
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As we mentioned earlier, there are ongoing requirements with the State of Tennessee.
The first of these is called the Annual Report which we will discuss in this Lesson.
The second of these is filing your LLC's taxes.
We will discuss taxes in the next Lesson.
The purpose of the Annual Report is to keep the State updated with your LLC's contact
information.
The Annual Report includes your LLC name, your office address, your Registered Agent
information, and your Secretary of State Control Number.
If you do not have your Secretary of State Control Number handy, we will show you how
to obtain it online in just a few minutes.
The filing fee for your Annual Report is $300 and it is due at the same time every year.
It must be paid by the 1st day of the 4th month after the end of your LLC's fiscal year.
Your LLC's fiscal year is also known as your LLC's "financial year", the 12-month period
you use for accounting and tax purposes.
Most of our members use January 1st to December 31st as their LLC's fiscal year.
Since this is the most common, we recommend this time frame for your LLC's fiscal year
(unless your accountant or tax professional recommends otherwise).
If your LLC's fiscal year ends on December 31st, then your Annual Report will be due
by April 1st each year.
The Annual Report can only be filed after the end of your fiscal year.
That means of December is the end of your fiscal year, you can file as early as January
1st, but no later than April 1st.
We recommend filing your Annual Report as early as possible, just to be on the safe
side.
For this reason, we recommend putting a repeating reminder on your calendar to file your Annual
Report shortly after the new year.
There are 2 ways you can file your Annual Report with the State.
You can file by mail or you can file online.
If you file by mail, you will prepare your Annual Report on the State's website, then
print it out and mail it to the State along with a check or money order to pay the filing
see.
If you file online, you will prepare your Annual Report on the State's website, then
submit it electronically and pay the filing fee with a debit or credit card.
Filing online is simple and only takes a few minutes.
We will walk you through the details in just a second.
If your Annual Report is not filed by the deadline, you have a 60-day grace period.
If you fail to file your Annual Report before the end of the grace period, the State will
automatically dissolve (shut down) your LLC.
As you can see, this is very important, so the State will mail you a reminder at the
end of your LLC's fiscal year (most likely in December) to file by the deadline of April
1st.
However, we still recommend that you keep a repeating reminder on your calendar in case
you don't receive the State's reminder notice.
We're now ready to file your Annual Report.
The link below this video will take you to the State's website.
Let's get started here we are at the State's online website.
Again, the link below this video will take you here.
There are some basic instructions on the left-hand side.
However, we did cover the majority of this.
When you're ready, go ahead and hit the "Start Now" button.
The 1st thing we need to do is we need to enter our Secretary of State Control Number.
If you don't have your Control Number handy, we can search the database in order to find
it.
Down here it says "If you look up your 'Control Number' go ahead and click 'Business Information
Search'".
Go ahead and enter the first few words of your business name.
I've entered in the name of the sample company I'm going to use, and then down here where
it says "Image Text", enter the characters you see on the right for security purposes.
Once you do so, go ahead and hit "Search".
And here's the LLC name I was looking for, and over on the left you can see the Control
Number (it's right here, 000450843).
You can write this down, or I'm going to highlight that (right-clicking and hit "Copy").
Once you have your Control Number saved, go ahead and hit the back button (1, 2, twice),
and then on this page, under the Annual Report (where it says the "Control Number"), I'm
going go ahead and paste that in there, so enter the Control Number in and then hit "Begin".
The State's going to then pull up your LLC's information.
This is the information that's on the database when you formed in the LLC.
Make sure it's the correct entity, and then go ahead and hit "Continue".
It's a pretty simple process; we're basically going to go through the steps across the top,
and we're just confirming that the information is the same, or we're going to update the
information if there have been changes to our information.
1st step here ("Principal Office Address"), if the information has remained the same,
you can leave everything as is and then hit "Continue", or if you need to change your
address you can do so and then hit "Continue".
Under "Mailing Address", this may be the same as the 1st step, or it might be different.
Make sure the information is up-to-date, and then hit "Continue".
Under Registered Agent (again you're confirming here), note that the State does charge $20
if you make changes to the Registered Agent information.
For the sample company, it was an individual who is the Registered Agent for the LLC, and
that is still the same.
We're going to hit "Continue".
Under "LLC Managers", this is most likely not going to apply (although there are red
asterisks down here that looks like you need to fill out this information).
The State already has the members of your LLC on record, and this step here only applies
to Manager-managed LLCs.
The majority of our customers are Member-managed LLCs, not Manager-managed LLCs.
If that's the case, go ahead and select "Member Managed LLC", and then over on the right,
select the number of members that are in your company.
For this example, I'm going to use "1".
Again, down here, this is for adding new managers (again, this most likely does not apply).
This is a Single-Member and it's a Member-managed LLC.
I'm then going to hit "Continue".
Under "Officers", this does also not apply as this is primarily for Manager-managed LLCs,
and this would be adding corporate officers.
Now, just to clarify, this has nothing to do with the owners or the members of the LLC;
these are officers that are hired to help run the business.
Again, in this case, you don't need to do anything, you can leave all those blank, and
make sure that you leave this check box here unchecked.
So we're not going do anything here, we're just going to hit "Continue".
On the Confirmation Page, take a scroll-through, confirm everything is correct.
You'll see here is the Annual Report filing fee, as well as the online convenience fee
that the State charges.
Once you review all the information, go ahead and hit "Continue".
On the next step, we're going sign the document electronically.
We're going to check off "I certify", enter your first name, your last name and title.
For title, you can enter "Managing Member".
I've entered some sample information.
Once you complete this section, go ahead and hit "Continue".
And we're going to be taken to the payment step.
Again, we have 2 options: we can print this document out, and then mail it along with
the check or money order to pay the filing fee.
If that's the case, go ahead and hit the "Print this Annual Report", and you'll see that document
is going to save to your computer.
If I click "Show in Finder", you'll see here that document is now on my desktop, and then
I can then print it out and send my check or money order to make payment, or if you'd
like to pay online, go ahead and hit "File Documents and Pay with a Debit or Credit Card".
It's going to re-direct you to the Payment Center.
On this page, you're going to enter the name on your card, select the type, enter the credit
card number, the expiration date, the 3-digits on the back, then enter the billing address
associated with that card, and enter your email for confirmation of payment.
Once you have all this information complete, go down and hit "Submit".
Wait for that to be processed; once the payment has successfully gone through, you'll be able
to download a copy of your Annual Report.
And then that concludes this step.
Remember, this is important, and you want to make sure that you filed this by the 1st
day of the 4th month after the end of your fiscal year.
Most likely, your fiscal year will end December 31st (which means this is due every year and
the State must receive it by April 1st).
If they don't receive your Annual Report within the 60 day grace-period, they will dissolve
and shut down your LLC.
Again, we recommend keeping a repeating reminder on your calendar to make sure you do not miss
this important step.
Once you've submitted your Annual Report to the State, and you've printed a copy for your
records, that concludes this Lesson.
Again, just to drill the point home, make sure you log back into the course next year
and file this report before the due date.
And that concludes the video.