What filing through FileTax actually looks like

Every screen, in the order you will meet it, with the real thing shown rather than described. If you want to know what you are handing over before you hand it over, this is the page.

About ten minutes for a straightforward year. The screenshots use a fictional filer, Test LLC, so nothing here belongs to a real customer. Looking for what Form 5472 is and why you owe it? Start with the guides.

Step 1

The eligibility check

Before we take any details, three questions establish whether this filing is one we can prepare properly. It takes about a minute, and it is the only part of the process where the honest answer might be that you should see a CPA instead.

What type of U.S. entity are you filing for?

Only a single-member LLC continues. A multi-member LLC, a C-Corporation, or an honest 'I am not sure' each stop here with an explanation of why a professional should look at it first.

Has the IRS issued an EIN, is the owner a non-U.S. individual, and is the LLC still taxed as formed?

Three yes-or-no questions that appear one after another. No EIN means there is nothing to file against yet. A U.S. citizen, Green Card holder, or anyone meeting the Substantial Presence Test falls under different rules. And a Form 8832 or Form 2553 already on file means the LLC is no longer a disregarded entity, which changes the return entirely.

How many tax years do you need to file?

A count, not the specific years, which is enough to price the job. You choose the actual years later, once we know your incorporation date and can rule out years the LLC did not exist. We support tax years back to 2019.

Your answers here are never stored and never carried into the portal. That is why the intake asks for your LLC details again rather than pre-filling them, and it is a deliberate trade: nothing to leak from a screen you may have only been browsing.

Step 2

Creating your account

Free, and no payment is taken at this point. You choose an email address and a password, confirm the email, and sign in.

The password requirements are shown as you type

At least 8 characters, with a lowercase letter, an uppercase letter, a number and a symbol. The checklist under the field ticks off in real time, so you are not guessing at what is missing and then being told after you submit.

We check the password is not a known-breached one

Beyond the character rules, the password is scored for strength and checked against the HaveIBeenPwned breach database. That check uses k-anonymity: only a partial hash prefix leaves your browser, never the password itself. A password that has appeared in a public breach is rejected, because it is the first thing an attacker tries.

Confirm your email, then sign in

We email you a confirmation link. Clicking it confirms the address and returns you to the portal, where you sign in with the password you just chose. If you ever forget it, the reset link on the sign-in form emails you a link to set a new one.

What to have ready

Your EIN, the tax year, your state of formation and incorporation date, your own legal name, country of residence and foreign tax ID, and the transactions between you and the LLC for the year. Nothing here needs a bank login, and we never ask you to upload statements.

Step 3

Your dashboard

Every filing you start appears here and stays here once it is finished, so you can come back and download the package again later. It opens with a row of counts so you can see what needs you without reading the list.

Where each filing has got to

A filing is a Draft while you are still entering details, In progress once it is under way, Ready to download once paid, and Downloaded after you have taken the package. Payment failed appears if a card is declined, so a half-finished purchase is never silently abandoned.

The deadline is worked out for you

Each filing shows its own IRS position for that tax year: the original due date while there is still time, the extended date once the first has passed, and 'Past due, file ASAP' after that. The summary row shows your nearest deadline across every unfinished filing.

Start one year, or catch up several

A single tax year goes straight into the intake. Missed several years and the catch-up flow sets them up as one job, grouped together on the dashboard so the years stay a single piece of work rather than scattered rows.

Nothing is lost if you stop

The intake saves as you go. You can close the tab partway through and pick it up from the dashboard days later on a different machine. A catch-up resumes at the earliest year still needing work, so the years get filed in order.

You can delete a filing you have not paid for

Unpaid drafts can be removed, including a whole catch-up job at once. Once a year has been paid for it stays, because a half-deleted catch-up is worse than none.

Step 4

The intake, section by section

This is the part that takes real time, about ten minutes for a straightforward year. It is six sections, and one of them only appears if your filing is late.

LLC Details

Legal name, EIN, tax year, state of formation, date of incorporation, your business activity, and total assets at year end. The business activity picks the NAICS code for you rather than making you look one up.

Filing Status, only when the year is late

This section appears only if the due date for that year has passed. It asks why the filing is late, in a few structured questions rather than a blank box. If you are filing on time you will never see this screen.

Owner Details

Your legal name, address, country of residence and citizenship, and your foreign tax ID. The tax ID field knows the format for your country and warns you if what you have entered does not match it.

Related Parties

Most single-member LLCs have exactly one related party, you, and this section stays empty. Add a party here only if the LLC transacted with a foreign parent or another entity you control. Each additional party is its own Form 5472, every year.

Transactions

The money and non-money movements between you and the LLC during the year: capital contributions, distributions, loans, services, reimbursements. You enter them manually. These populate Part IV, Part V and Part VI of Form 5472.

Review

A plain-language summary of everything you entered, before anything is generated. Read it properly. This is the last point at which a typo is free to fix.

Each section validates before it lets you continue. If something is missing or does not look right, you are told on that screen rather than after payment.

Step 5

Generating and paying

Your package is built from the details you entered, on the IRS form revision in force for that tax year, not on the current year's form for every year.

What is in the package

Always the pro forma Form 1120 and Form 5472, and a Part VI statement. A Part V statement is added if you had monetary transactions, and a Form 7004 if an extension applies to your year. The screen lists exactly what yours contains before you pay.

You sign it here, at the end and not before

Draw your signature, or leave the pad blank and it falls back to your typed name, which the IRS accepts just as readily. Signing sits immediately before generating on purpose, so you are signing the filing as it is about to be rendered rather than a version you edited three screens ago. On a catch-up, one signature covers every year.

Then you pay and download

$99 per tax year, and $25 for each additional related party per year. Any add-ons you chose are itemised on the same screen, and you see the total before you are asked to pay. The download is a print-ready PDF.

Step 6

Sending it to the IRS

The package is complete and signed when you download it. What it still needs is to reach the IRS, and that step is yours unless you add fax delivery.

By mail or by fax

Form 5472 with a pro forma 1120 goes to the IRS by mail or by fax. The filing instructions included with your package give the current address and fax number for your filing, so you are not hunting for them.

Or we send it

Fax delivery is an opt-in $9 for the whole job, however many years it covers. You get the transmission confirmation.

Keep the confirmation

Whichever way it goes, keep proof of when it was sent. If the IRS later questions the date, that proof is the answer.

If you are catching up several years

The flow above describes one tax year. Several missed years work the same way, with two differences worth knowing before you start.

• ✓You enter the shared details once. Your LLC and owner details carry across every year in the job. What changes year to year is the transactions and the total assets.
• ✓Each year gets its own correct form revision. A 2021 filing is rendered on the 2021 Form 1120, not on this year's.

What this flow does not do

Worth reading before you start rather than after.

We do not prepare your personal return

If you have U.S.-source income, staff, or premises, your own return is in question. This flow does not prepare Form 1040-NR, and the intake asks about U.S. activity per tax year so you are told rather than left to find out.

We do not respond to IRS notices

A voluntary catch-up and a reply to a penalty notice are different positions. If the IRS has already written to you, take the letter to a CPA.

We do not decide what your LLC did

The transactions you enter are the ones we report. If you are not sure what moved between you and the LLC in a given year, that has to be resolved before any form can be filled in honestly.

We do not offer judgement on a complicated position

If your situation turns on facts a form cannot capture, you want a person. The eligibility check screens for most of these and will refer you out rather than take your money.

Weighing this against an accountant? See how we compare to a CPA.

Ready to see where you stand?

Start with the eligibility check. It takes about a minute, stores nothing, and tells you honestly whether we can help.