I was assisting on a presentation with a Palatine WinTrust banker as part of their community outreach. This was a SCORE Small Business presentation; the section I was assisting with was Income Taxes.
During the presentation I would add real world color comments as well as answer any and all questions.
Then I made a comment that all businesses that are active with the Illinois Secretary of State need to file an annual tax return, even if there is no activity. This caused one attendee to start asking many more questions. Apparently they had an active LLC but had not filed. Now they were concerned because tax season had just ended.
If you have a live business with the Illinois Secretary of State you have an obligation to file a tax return. You may not want to spend the money; there may not have been any activity beyond that Annual Reporting fee. But Uncle Sam does want to know what you are up to, and letting them know is cheaper than the non-filing penalties.