Late filing S-corp Election

[Max W]

A new client used a well known corporate organizing and legal filing firm to set up their corp.  They requested that it be an S-corp.  The corp was filed Nov 18, 2017, so the 2553 election was due early in Feb 1 (75 days).

The reason they are giving for the late filing is that they relied on the filing firm to follow through with the S-corp requirements and since the owners are new to the corporate world, they were unaware of the 2553 election.

I know that in the past, the IRS was pretty lenient about late filing, but don' know about recently.

Has anyone had any recent experience and would their explanation suffice?

TIA

 

 

 

[Abby Normal]

Almost any explanation will suffice. The IRS doesn't fight S elections.

[Max W]

Thanks, Abby. It's good to know that the IRS is still lenient on this.

[Catherine]

I had a company that was almost a year late with the S-election form.  It went through, no questions.  Just some scolding of the client from me... not that it helped this particular group.

[Max W]

After preparing the 2553 and emailing it to them, I got back from them an IRS acceptance letter for the S-corp, dated Feb 26.  

I guess the question to them should have been - "Do you remember signing form 2553"?   I am willing to bet, however, the answer would have been - "What's a form 2553."?