Fractional CFO ServicesFor Texas owners

One screen, from any Texas town.

An owner in another Texas town joins by video, and the month still closes on the weekday we agreed. Getting here does not mean a trip. It does not pretend we keep a room in your town, a shop window, or a walk-up counter. The work after the call, if there is work, moves through the shared books and the letter.

Past Dallas and Fort Worth, we are all Texans. We do not claim a Saturday on your street, and we do not claim we have stood in your shop. We know the same sky, and we close the month on the same kind of day, whichever side of the state the company is on.

You can still buy one job. The Texas report is one of those jobs. It does not come bundled with the close, the cash view, or the return unless you ask for it.

Places a Texas owner already knows.

Every Texan knows the halls at Fair Park, raised for the 1936 centennial just east of downtown. We share that pride. We name one hall, the way you name one service and leave the rest. The fair can fill the grounds. These pages still let you ask for one job.

From 1952 onward, Big Tex is the figure people meet in the middle of those fairgrounds. Texans point at that one figure and let the rest wait. A cash view deserves that same single pointing. One stretch of weeks, and the other services stay put.

The white arch people mean is the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. Since 2012 it has taken Woodall Rodgers over the Trinity and into West Dallas. One span does that job. Owner pay should cross the same way, and only after the month is closed.

A blue norther, the cold front under a dark sky from November through March, is weather every Texan already knows. We know that sky too. A cold front does not move the day the month gets tied, and it does not add a second service to the one you already pointed at.

Anyone who eats along that part of Greenville Avenue, from Mercedes Avenue to Belmont, is on the stretch called Lower Greenville. We are not on that sidewalk. Each door there keeps its own night. A closed month should keep its own night too, instead of borrowing next month's deposits so the page looks smooth.

Just northwest of downtown, warehouses gave way to the showrooms and galleries of the Design District. We are not in those rooms. Walking into one room is enough for an afternoon. Buying one service off these pages is the same courtesy, and the other rooms can stay closed until you have a reason to open them.

The marathon in Dallas, the oldest in Texas, usually starts and finishes downtown in December and loops White Rock Lake. We are not on that course. A long year still has one finish. The finish we care about is the job you came with, not a tour of every service on the way there.

Pecan Lodge in Deep Ellum is the barbecue people wait for, one plate at a time. We are not in that queue. The owner in a hypothetical waited on one number, the deposit, and left the rest of these pages for a later week. That is the behavior this page is here to praise. The company is invented. The finish is the point.

In front of the Joule, Tony Tasset's sculpture Eye is the giant eyeball people pause for. We are not on that block. People notice one thing and then walk on. The attest work is the work these pages will not sell, and we would rather you notice that limit than walk past it into a proposal.

The franchise report, as one job.

A Texas entity with a year that has already been closed can point at the franchise report. The report is built from those closed months, not from a remembered rate. On the Comptroller's published instructions the report comes due in May, and the margin rules are whatever that office is printing now. A rate recalled from a conversation does not get written down on these pages.

The Comptroller page carries the due date and the margin rules. We leave the rate on that page, and these pages do not copy it down. Those rules leave this page the day that office changes them. A Texas report in May is often the finish a Texas file was waiting on. It is one job. You can leave the return and the cash view unbought.

A certificate of formation has a fee that office prints, and the company must name a registered agent who agrees to serve, because the company cannot serve as its own agent. We point at the instructions. We do not nail the fee down here. A new registered agent is recorded at the Secretary of State, and that recording is not a row on the franchise report. It is not a figure you type onto the franchise report.

What the Comptroller is printing for 2026 and 2027.

Owners know this filing as the franchise tax. The Comptroller calls this a privilege tax on a taxable entity formed in Texas or doing business in Texas. Corporations file. So do limited liability companies, including a company with one owner, and so do partnerships and a long list of other entities. Stay unincorporated, with no company on file, and this franchise filing usually does not apply to you. Read the list on the Comptroller publication that names who files.

The tax itself falls away on the 2026 filing, and again on the 2027 filing, when revenue is 2,650,000 dollars or less. A company at or under that revenue does not file the tax report. The public information report, or the ownership report, is still sent in, except where that office's own skip list says to leave it out. Leave that short report unfiled and the right to keep doing business can be put at risk. The threshold for 2024 and 2025 was 2,470,000 dollars. Use the row for the report year in front of you. Do not borrow an older row.

Retail and wholesale each use the 0.375 percent rate. Any other file uses the 0.75 percent rate. 0.331 percent is the rate on the short computation, and that computation stays available only while revenue is no higher than 20 million dollars. Compensation inside the margin math is capped at 480,000 dollars for those same 2026 and 2027 reports. Use the percent that office has posted, and use the row for the year sitting in front of you. Older percentages stay on that page.

Margin, when the long form is the one you file, is a choice among four computations. The first computation keeps seventy percent of total revenue and drops the rest. One subtracts the cost of goods. One subtracts compensation. One subtracts one million dollars. A company whose work is only services often finds the law allows no cost of goods in that computation. The compensation figure inside that computation is a filing idea. The wage you might set for an owner in October is a planning idea. Keeping the October wage talk away from the report row keeps a planning choice from being mistaken for a filing row.

Put the annual report on 15 May, and treat that day as the one to remember. Saturday, Sunday, and holidays push that filing onto the next ordinary weekday. The information report shares that date. Show up after that date and the office charges a 50 dollar penalty. The charge remains even when the tax computes to zero. From the first late day through day thirty, the penalty on the tax is 5 percent. Once the tax is more than thirty days late, that penalty steps up to 10 percent. Interest on tax that is still open starts on day 61. The percent for that interest is whatever the Comptroller interest page is printing, and this page does not copy it.

If the entity is outside electronic transfer, the extra time runs out on 15 November. Electronic transfer is required once the entity paid 10,000 dollars or more during the previous state fiscal year. 15 August is the first added deadline for a payer who must send the money electronically. A further extra date reaches 15 November. A file that paid 500,000 dollars or more in the prior year pays through TEXNET. Payment code 13080 has to be finished by eight in the evening, Central time, on the weekday before the report is due. On the call we say that evening out loud, so a large payment does not arrive as news.

The figures above are the Comptroller's published rows for the years named. Confirm the holiday shift and the evening clock on the franchise pages before you rely on a date. No made-up company gets a sample bill on this page. A fiction of that kind would only mislead.

Sales tax on the same calendar.

Texas sales tax is a different pile from the franchise report, and a closed month has to agree with it. The state piece is 6.25 percent. A city, a county, and a transit authority may add local tax, up to 2 percent, so the combined rate stops at 8.25 percent. In Dallas the stack many owners meet is the state 6.25 percent, plus 1 percent for the city, plus 1 percent for transit.

A monthly sales filer sends the return on the 20th, and that return covers the month that just ended. A quarterly sales filer has four meetings with the calendar, on April 20, July 20, October 20, and January 20. A yearly filer meets January 20. The sales tax draft in the books should match the payment that actually left. A local rate has to come from that office. Memory is not the source. The Comptroller's sales tax pages are the source, and a rate changes when that office says it changes.

A franchise report in May and a sales tax return on the 20th can land in the same spring. They are two jobs. You can ask for one of them. The close is still the record the others use, because both reports are built from months the bank already agreed with.

What we still will not sign.

Attest work does not get a Texas exception. Audit, review, and compilation each ask for a cover signature, and this practice will not place one. A bank package from this practice goes out under your name as the owner, not under an auditor's cover. The franchise report is a Texas filing built from the closed year. It is not that attest cover. If a bank letter uses the word assurance, we say so and we end the conversation there.

Bring the month, or the notice, or the question about which computation the year supports. One of those is enough. The rest of these pages can wait until you ask for it.