DE Franchise Taxes and Annual Reports are due by March 1. If you don’t file by the deadline, you get hit with something like a $250 late fee.
Also Delaware Franchise Taxes can be calculated in either of two ways. The notice Delaware sends you always uses whichever way would result in you paying a higher fee than you need to. For most startups with assets less than $1M, you should only be paying $400: $350 Franchise Tax + $50 DE mandatory filing fee.
For example, last year they sent Company A a Franchise Tax bill for $90K, when in reality Company A only owed $400 because of the more startup friendly calculation method.
If you are filing these for yourself and aren’t paying someone else to do it for you, here is the link to pay and file online.
I tend to get a lot of founders calling me in a panic in January because they just got a Delaware notice with a huge dollar amount attached.
If you have assets <$1M do you recommend filing my Delaware Franchise Taxes Myself?
You can if you’d like, I wouldn’t say it’s that hard, it’s just a little bit of a hassle, like any government filing. But if you use Savvi for registered agent services, we will do it for you free of charge. You just have to pay us the $400 that Delaware requires and we pass it on to Delaware.
The Savvi Founder 