topic Owners pay/withdrawals in Get your taxes done using TurboTax

Owners pay/withdrawals

user17627951583 — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:13:37 GMT

How should I handle owner pay/withdrawals? Do I need to pay taxes on owner withdrawals if they are to pay back a previous investment and how should that be reported on taxes?

Re: Owners pay/withdrawals

VolvoGirl — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:18:16 GMT

What kind of business return do you file? If you just file it on Schedule C in your personal return you do not report or enter your pay or withdrawals.

Sole proprietors cannot take a withdrawal or salary and include it as an expense on their tax return. As a sole proprietor, you are not an employee of the business. You don't pay yourself or enter a salary or withdrawal for yourself. All the business income and expenses are your personal income and expenses in the first place. You just fill out a Schedule C. The net profit or loss is your income. If you have a net profit of $400 or more on schedule C you will pay SE self employment tax on it in addition to your regular income tax. It's all included on your personal 1040 form.

Re: Owners pay/withdrawals

Mark_5 — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:33:04 GMT

For an owners draw on a schedule C sole proprietorship (and a single member LLC not electing to be treated differently), an owner's draw itself is not directly taxable.
However, you do pay taxes based on your business's net income (income less expenses), regardless of the draw amount.
For self-employment you should be calculating and paying estimated quarterly taxes (income tax and payroll). you could use our tax calculator to assist you with the number. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/calculators/self-employed/
If you have elected S-corp status, you are required to be issuing yourself payroll checks (reasonable compensation) before draws - distributions.

If you have partners or a multiple member LLC (partnership), you could possibly be having a reduction in your Partner's Capital Account or possibly a guaranteed payment depending on the nature of the cash out and you could be subject to self employment taxes.

Re: Owners pay/withdrawals

user17627951583 — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 17:24:23 GMT

I file as a single owner LLC. We file using TurboTax for small businesses and file both our family's taxes and business taxes together.

Re: Owners pay/withdrawals

vithalanin — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:02:54 GMT

As a single member LLC, you are considered a disregarded entity and so your income and expenses are reported the same as a sole proprietor. The net income from this is what you will pay taxes on. The distribution you take from this LLC is not taxable but is also not an expense for the company. So it does not impact your net profit (income less expenses), which is what you pay income taxes and self-employment taxes on. So you do not need to report these owner payments in your tax returns.

Re: Owners pay/withdrawals

AlisonT — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 18:05:12 GMT

Typically if you are a single-member LLC and you file your business's and your family's taxes together using Turbotax the software would be generating a Schedule C for your business. The versions of Turbotax that support that are TurboTax Self-Employed (online) and TurboTax Home & Business (Desktop).