Bass Performance Hall holds its corner in limestone, and people in town find their way by that face. The franchise report is a worksheet, not a landmark, and it still deserves a month of its own.
Reports that come due in 2026 and in 2027 use a no-tax-due line of 2,650,000 dollars in annualized total revenue. Under that line, many entities file an information report and stop. Over it, margin tax is real money. The retail and wholesale computation uses 0.375 percent. Businesses outside retail and wholesale are computed at 0.75 percent. The report date is 15 May.
Margin is not the same word as profit in your head. The statute lets you compute margin in more than one way, and the choice can matter. Compensation, cost of goods, and a flat percentage of revenue are the familiar paths. We pick the path the books support. We do not pick a path the books cannot show.
That is why the monthly close is the franchise report in disguise. If wages are in one account all year, compensation is easy to see in May. If cost of goods is a guess piled into a leftover line, May becomes a reconstruction. A crew that outgrew a single visit usually outgrew the leftover line first.
An entity that owes no tax can still owe the information report. Saying nothing is not the same as filing. A dormant entity still has a dated question. March is the month to ask it, long before a penalty notice does the asking.
Owners in Fort Worth sometimes meet this report for the first time the year after a strong year. The strong year is good news. The report is the state asking how the margin was built. Payroll setup matters here too, because wages are both a deduction path and a thing the franchise form can see. The wages have to exist in a provider's record, not only in a transfer to yourself.
Public sources for this page are the Comptroller's franchise tax pages, including the no-tax-due threshold and the rate page. We do not round the threshold into a slogan. 2,650,000 dollars is the figure they published for those report years. If they change it, this page changes.
A combined group, a first year, a purchase, or a short period each has its own worksheet. Put that fact in the form in your own words if it is yours. The ordinary case is one entity, a full year, and a margin the books can already explain.
The report we prepare starts from a year whose months already ended. May is a poor moment to invent a chart of accounts. If the year is still open, the work before the report is ending those months. The date stays put when the books are messy, so the close has to start as soon as you know May is coming.
Nothing here is your margin. Bring the year-end trial balance you trust, or tell us you do not have one yet. Both answers are a start.
The signature we do not put on paper.
An audit cover, a review cover, a compilation cover, and any other assurance report need a license this practice does not hold.
If a lender asked for that cover, you hear the no before any proposal, and the next step is the public register. Payday stays on a provider you operate. An examination of the return stays with whoever holds that job, which is not us.
The capitol statute pages for Texas Occupations Code sections 901.451, 901.453, and 901.456 are why an assurance cover stays with a license holder. What leaves this practice is the prepared return, the advice, and statements that attach no opinion. A crew that outgrew one April still needs those three jobs named in ordinary words before spring.
People allowed to sign those covers are listed on the state board site. Those three section numbers are public on the capitol pages, and they are why the cover stays with a license holder rather than with this practice.
Name the May report
Say whether you were under the line last year.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.