Closing an entity is not all that difficult, but yes, if you fail to take the proper steps to end the entity's trading/business activity the IRS could certainly take the position that you stated above.Can IRS come after trader saying: "Look, your activity is/was conducted as a business, thus *is* a business - you must trade through entity"?
Quote from traderstatus:
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If you are finding this is not the case, you may have elected M2M within the entity and are confused on how to terminate it (simply form a new entity, is one easy solution); or you may be trading within a c-corporation (generally a bad idea); or your tax work is messed up in some way...
Quote from gms:
I've been told that if you walk away from an entity, and that the entity is not conducting any business, no profit, that though you should technically dissolve the company, no one's really going to come after you, it not being worth any effort if there really hasn't been any activity and no taxes due. You'd be declaring your earnings and paying your taxes in the meantime as an individual. No harm, no foul.
Quote from traderstatus:
But more to the point, trading futures, per se, is not "better" when filing as an individual taxpayer, rather than through an entity. Traders generally use pass-thru entities and as such the tax attributes of trading futures passes to the owner(s).