“Fine. Here’s your stupid letter,” I said the next time we talked. “Can you please make the threatening emails go away? You’re scaring people.” “Yes. I’ll send it over to the tax team right away.”

The idea was to take everything that people hate about services like CorpNet and make it a pleasant, supportive experience for people. We’d answer their questions in words that made sense. We'd support them as they entered their tax IDs into their payroll system. If they got alerts from payroll or letters in the mail, we’d translate them into action.

Like you can just tap them on the shoulder and hand them the phone. “Excuse me, Mr. Zuckerberg. Can you please talk to this guy Doug in Minnesota?”

This year, as you wallow in anxiety waiting for the tax team to get back to you, I have a fun project for you. Make sure your state payroll tax settings are correct. This is the only time when it DOESN’T feel irrelevant and boring. So Take advantage of it.

Your registered agent is just someone in another location that is authorized to accept mail for you. That's it.

Hey, Tyler. I noticed you have seven dependents on your tax form. Usually those would be people in your immediate family who share your living expenses and rely on your income, like a spouse and kids. Are you sure that all of these people would actually be considered dependents for tax purposes?

Imputed pay is a type of non-cash benefit whose value is still taxable by the IRS. It could be life insurance, a domestic partner’s benefits, bills your employer paid for you, gifts. Answer: Your payroll person adds an “imaginary” dollar to your paycheck. That’s imputed pay.

Many midwestern states have reciprocity agreements where each state agrees to let the other handle payroll taxes. Without keeping score. It’s the state tax equivalent of saying, “It’s cool, bro. I know you’ll get me next time.”