In the current year, Plum, Inc., a closely held C corporation, has $410,000 of net active income, $20,000 of portfolio income, and a $75,000 passive activity loss. What is Plum’s taxable income for the current year if (a) Plum is a personal service corporation and (b) Plum is not a personal service corporation?

(a) $430,000

(b) $355,000

Explanation:

To answer the question, it is important to understand the meaning of passive income or loss and how it applies to personal service corporation (PSC) and C corporation.

Passive income refers to income received from investment without active participation in the running of the business. Example of passive income is dividend.

For personal service corporation (PSC), when there is a passive loss, in can only be deducted from any other available passive income from other investments. If there is no other passive income, the passive loss is not deductible from active income.

For C corporation, passive loss is allowed to be deducted against net active income. However, it can not be deducted against portfolio income .

The questions are then answered as follows:

a) If Plum is a personal service corporation (PSC)

Since Plum is PSC, it cannot deduct passive activity loss of $75,000 from the net active income nor portfolio income.

Therefore, it taxable income is the addition of net active income and portfolio income as follows:

Taxable income = $410,000 + $410,000 = $430,000

b) Plum is not a personal service corporation

Here, Plum is considered as a C coporartion. Therefore, it can deduct the passive loss from the active income  but not from portfolio income. Its Taxable income is therefore as follows:

Taxable income = ($410,000 - $75,000) + $20,000 = $355,000

the third answer is correct.