Hi,

I opened a C-corp in June of 2011 in New York City. The business never came to fruition so I never made any profit nor filed taxes. I'm trying to get everything in order now and wanted to know what steps I should take, what to expect and what penalties are involved. Thank you in advance for your time.

Unlike an individual, an individual who doesn't earn a cent of income might not have to file a tax return, but the rules are different for corps. Under the tax code, every U.S. corp that's in business to make a profit must file a tax return regardless of whether it made any money. This applies both to traditional corps and Subchapter S corps.so, All corporations and LLCs must file an income tax return whether or not they have taxable income.Unless your corp earned income, you do not owe to IRS/NYS however, yu need to pay penalties/interest on franchise/excise taxes to NYS. Just because a corporation has no sales doesn't mean the business has no financial activity to report on a tax return. As a startup, you'll likely have costs to write off as business expenses. As said, a dormant continuing business may have licensing fees, franchises taxes ,unlesss you paid them, or other costs it must pay just to maintain its legal right to do business, as well as asset depreciation and amortization expenses it's entitled to claim. Since you had no revenue for a given year, these kinds of costs produce a net loss, and the tax code allows you to carry these losses forward to future years, or back to past years, to offset income in those years and reduce your overall tax burden. I guess you need to file your back taxes.