Frequently Asked Questions

Lettuce is a good fit for new or existing businesses-of-one that are looking for a more automated and strategic approach to estimating, planning for and paying their taxes--all while taking advantage of the best tax saving strategies available.

Lettuce is specifically for businesses-of-one based in the U.S., focused on selling services--consulting, creative work, software development, therapy, legal services are all great examples. You can be set up as a sole proprietor or as an LLC and your business can be new or existing.

Lettuce Pro is the only automated S Corp solution. No other platform offers this uniquely specialized guidance, and automates the work for you.

First, we exclusively specialize in taxes and accounting for businesses-of-one. Our recommendations are tailored to your needs, and personalized for each individual business based on what you earn, what you spend, and what your goals are.

Second, we do it all with modern technology. There is no off-shore accountant group involved, just a team of dedicated technology professionals, working hard to solve your challenges. With Lettuce you can focus on running your business instead of spending your time on bookkeeping and accounting.

Not yet ready for an S Corp? Lettuce Grow offers all the benefits of tax planning support for LLCs not yet ready for an S Corp.

It takes about five minutes to provide Lettuce with all of the information needed to set up either a Lettuce Grow or Lettuce Pro account. With that information we’ll set your business up with the right structure, tax filing status and a new business bank account. Once you sign your documentation, we handle all of the paperwork on your behalf and will keep you updated along the way. Business registration timing varies by state and can take between 1-3 weeks based on your location. 

Lettuce is simple and intuitive. There's no complex software to learn or complicated functionality, so you can focus on your business and not your accounting.

This depends a bit on how you want to run your business.

You can login as often as you like to look at your income and how your deductions are being classified, or just check-in once a month. For our Lettuce Pro customers, we will process and pay your taxes and ‘reasonable salary’ every month. You’ll be able to review your completed payroll within the platform once these payments are processed. At the end of the year, Lettuce will balance your salary and owner's distribution based on your total income, and prepare your business tax return for you to approve. All of this takes minimal time, about thirty minutes every month.

Lettuce Pro takes care of all of your business taxes and bookkeeping. At the end of the year, Lettuce will file your business taxes, and provide you with a W-2 and a K-1 (documenting your owner’s distribution) to help you file your personal taxes. 

If your personal taxes are more complex, and you have assets beyond your W-2, you may still want to have an accountant or CPA help you file. However, the time and cost will be dramatically reduced because your business taxes will already be completed. Alternatively, if you would like Lettuce to file your personal taxes (1040) for you, we can do this for an additional $500/yr fee.

Lettuce Grow customers may also benefit from being able to file their personal taxes online using Lettuce’s digital tax portal.

Hiring freelancers is fine if you have an S Corp with Lettuce. These are people you'd pay with a 1099.

Lettuce does not support having W2 employees.

If you have a specific question about your scenario, just reach out at support@lettuce.co

You are free to end your Lettuce subscription at any time.

Your S Corp and LLC belong to you, even after you terminate your Lettuce subscription. You are still responsible for compliance and taxes of your business entity.

Discontinuing an S corp involves following legal dissolution procedures. You will need to submit a statement of revocation to the IRS service center where you file your annual return.

You can find the IRS instructions here.

It depends if you're in the same line of business or not.

If you have two separate businesses with two separate customer-bases and subject matter, you should open two separate companies (LLC) and make an S-election separately for each. 

If both of you provide the same type of consulting to the same type of customers in the same subject matter, you can open one LLC, make one S-election, and have both spouses be owners.

Alternatively, you can have one spouse be the owner and the other be a contractor/employee of the business. Lettuce supports both of these options.

Setup starts at $0, plus any state filing fees for incorporating your business based on its location. Lettuce covers the rest — LLC formation, S Corp election, EIN registration, and opening your business bank account. 

For Lettuce Pro, once you get paid and those funds land in your business bank account, we deduct your monthly subscription from there automatically.

Lettuce Grow customers will be billed via credit card after their LLC is established.

Lettuce Pro does not require a monthly payment until your business earns income. 

As an example, if you registered with Lettuce on November 15, had your business setup completed on December 15, and first get paid by a client on January 7, your first billing cycle would be January.

Your monthly fee is deducted directly from your Withholding account on the fourth Tuesday of every month. It is automatically categorized as a business expense and deducted from your taxes.

For LLC-only Lettuce Grow customers we do request a credit card to open your account.

We are so confident in our work that if you don’t save on your taxes as a Lettuce Pro customer, we will refund your fees. To learn more, see our Guarantee page.

Lettuce Pro costs $299/month. Starting at around $70,000 your savings will exceed the cost of setting up and maintaining your S Corp with Lettuce. As your income increases, your savings will increase.

If you do not think your earnings will meet this minimum, Lettuce Grow is a great first step in experiencing automated tax saving strategies. You’ll still benefit from Lettuce without an S Corp. Your monthly Lettuce Grow platform fee of $99 $49 covers automated tax withholding, bookkeeping, and invoicing.

Sole proprietorship is the default mode of many businesses-of-one. If you do nothing to officially set up your business with your state of operation, you file as a sole proprietor by default. Sole proprietorship is easy to maintain, but offers no liability protection or tax benefits.

An LLC takes some effort to set up and has some compliance requirements, and also offers you liability protection if you correctly separate your personal and business finances.

An S Corp is a tax status that you file with the IRS. It allows you to significantly reduce your self employment taxes (saving thousands), and also has some complex compliance requirements. Lettuce takes care of all of this for you. To learn more, read our blog posts on the differences between sole proprietorships and LLCs, and on the benefits of S Corps.

Yes, you can switch from a sole proprietorship to an S Corp. Lettuce handles both the setup of your LLC and your S Corp election.

In order to have an S Corp, the IRS requires that you be first legally recognized as an LLC by your state of operation. The LLC legally establishes your business, and offers personal liability protection. When electing to be taxed as an S Corp, your LLC can combine the liability protection with the tax benefits of an S Corp, optimizing both legal and tax advantages.

Lettuce recommends that you make a capital contribution when you establish your LLC, per IRS guidelines. Consider this an investment used to start the business, covering initial expenses and establishing your financial commitment to the LLC. Think of it like buying all the stock in your company. The money you deposit is yours to use.

This process can feel stressful, but doesn't have to be.

The name of your LLC is simply a unique name filed with your state government.

If the name you register is not the name you wanted, you can file a form with your state to create a DBA or "Doing Business As" name. This lets you use whatever name you like with clients.

As a Lettuce Pro customer, we establish your business as an S Corp, saving you thousands in taxes by significantly reducing your Social Security and Medicare tax payments. Instead of paying 15.3% self-employment tax on your total income, with an S Corp you only pay that tax on a portion of your income.

Lettuce also helps you maximize your deductions, and ensures you take advantage of tax savings opportunities in areas like healthcare and retirement planning.

Lettuce continuously tracks and categorizes expenses. Every day, your Lettuce system evaluates every dollar in your business, ensuring you are able to maximize tax deductions all year round.

Each time you get paid, Lettuce automatically sets money aside for your taxes, so you never need to make your own estimates or worry about getting them right.

For Lettuce Pro customers, your taxes are paid automatically when Lettuce processes your personal payroll each month.

For Lettuce Grow customers we tell you exactly how to pay those quarterly taxes right from your Lettuce bank account.

At the end of the year, your business tax filing forms like 1120S and Schedule K1 are compiled for you, making your personal filing a breeze.

Payroll is essential for S Corp owners to comply with IRS requirements. The IRS requires that you pay yourself a "reasonable salary" as an S Corp. You need to keep records of your payments, withhold the correct Social Security and Medicare taxes, and file and pay payroll taxes. For our Lettuce Pro customers, we take care of all of this for you when you become a member.

You do not need a separate payroll solution when using Lettuce, it's already integrated into your Lettuce System.

We guarantee the accuracy of our work.

If our work is challenged by the IRS, we’ll be first in line to defend it at no charge to you. If you’re audited by the IRS, Lettuce will assist you through any audit. Lettuce will also refund you for any IRS penalty or interest, or any re-filing based on a discrepancy in any work we’ve done. 

You can read more about the Lettuce Guarantee, here.

Lettuce’s tax engine calculates payroll taxes for you, so there’s no tax percentage or dollar amount to set by hand. The tax withheld from your paycheck has two parts:

• Payroll taxes apply only to your salary. Federal FICA (Social Security and Medicare) is a flat 15.3% for everyone, plus any state payroll taxes.
• Income tax is different for everyone. Our tax engine estimates it using your S-Corp income, expenses, and deductions, plus your Tax Profile (outside household income, dependents, filing status, and similar).

Yes. There is a Withholding step under Calibrate Taxes within the product. You can choose a rate from 30% to 50%, in 5% increments. The new rate applies only to income that arrives after you update and save the new withholding percent. There will be step-by-step directions provided in product. 

We do recommend 40%. On Lettuce Pro, this rate also keeps your salary high enough to meet the IRS reasonable compensation requirement. A lower rate can work if you have steady, predictable high expenses, but it comes with trade-offs. Even at 40%, the taxes you actually pay over the year are usually lower than that. The rest comes back to you as net pay.

Covered: all federal and state, income and payroll taxes for your business. 

Not covered: city/county-level local taxes, sales tax, corporate tax, franchise tax, excise tax, and similar.

Once you complete account activation, our Find Taxes (uncovered-taxes) explorer in the Taxes and Payroll section in product will show you a personalized list of state and local taxes you are responsible for based on your business location.

Personal taxes (1040) are optional but can be provided for an additional $500/annual fee. 

Lettuce sets you up with a free business bank account that can be easily accessed through your Lettuce dashboard.

You can view your statements, send and request invoices, transfer funds in and out, and more. You can also opt to use the Lettuce banking account as an automation 'hub' while retaining your existing business banking account.

Lettuce partners with i3 Bank, Member FDIC, which insures your funds up to $3,000,000.

Yes. You don't have to give up your current bank or business credit cards. What Lettuce does need is for your business income to land in the Lettuce bank account — that's what lets us automatically split out your salary and distributions, handle payroll, and manage tax withholding and payments to keep your S-Corp compliant. Once salary and distributions are routed through Lettuce, you're free to move money back to your other accounts anytime.

For expenses, you can sync your existing business credit card. For business checking, you can reimburse yourself for expenses from the Lettuce account in bulk rather than by transaction. Many customers choose to use Lettuce banking as their automation hub while still retaining their existing business accounts.

Yes, you can keep any business rewards credit card you have. You should only put business charges on that card and you should pay your bill with your bank account in Lettuce.

Payroll services that handle your "reasonable salary" portion of your S Corp are already integrated into your Lettuce system and handled automatically. 

We take data security and privacy extremely seriously at Lettuce. Lettuce ensures the highest security standards for your financial data, using encryption and secure protocols. Our approach to product development ensures our customers are in control of their data and that their information is safe at all times.

Additionally, our Lettuce guarantee provides assurance that your taxes will be accurate and that we'll defend our work if challenged by the IRS. 

All Curative members start with no out-of-pocket costs for covered care and preferred prescriptions. To maintain these benefits, you and any dependents aged 18 and older must complete an annual Baseline Visit within the first 120 days of the plan start. Your Baseline is administered online for simplicity, is confidential and won’t impact premiums. To learn more visit Curative’s website. 

First, you need to be a Lettuce Pro customer (or Premium) , then you can enroll. Enrolling in our PEO is considered a lifetime event, so coverage can begin at the beginning of the month after you enroll.   

Do not cancel any existing coverage until enrollment is finalized. The Lettuce team will notify all enrolled customers via email once enrollment is complete.

Healthcare will be an optional, additional fee on top of your Lettuce Pro membership.

Review the benefits guide to understand what the estimated premiums will be for yourself as an individual, you plus your spouse or children, or you plus your family. These rates are subject to change and will be finalized in the Enrollment Period.

Yes! You are the covered member, in the PEO scenario called the “employee” because of the co-employment relationship and just like at a W2 job, there are different options for adding you plus your spouse (Employee + Spouse), your children (Employee + Children), or everyone (Employee + Family). There are different premium rates that you can see in the benefits guide.

Yes, because PEO is technically a form of employment relationship, canceling your Lettuce Pro subscription would be what is known as a “qualifying event” to make you eligible for ACA plans again outside the normal open enrollment window.

Dental, vision and accident insurance are available Oct 2026. You must be a healthcare subscriber to access these optional benefits. 

Use this link to see if your preferred doctors, hospitals, or providers are in-network. If you would like to see if your prescription drugs are covered, use this link.