Schedule K-1
The tax form that reports your share of income, deductions, and credits from a partnership, S-corp, or trust.
If you invest in private funds, own an LLC taxed as a partnership, or are a trust beneficiary, you'll receive K-1s instead of (or alongside) 1099s. They arrive late, vary wildly in format, and feed multiple lines of your return — which is why they break almost every consumer aggregator. Parsing them into your AGI picture before they pile up on your CPA's desk is half the work of a complex return.
What a K-1 actually reports
A Schedule K-1 reports your share of a pass-through entity's income, deductions, credits, and other items — from a partnership, S-corporation, or trust. Unlike a 1099 that lands a clean number on one line, a K-1 can feed a dozen lines across your return: ordinary business income, interest, dividends, capital gains, Section 199A figures, foreign taxes, state apportionment, and more.
Why they break aggregators (and arrive late)
K-1s are issued after the entity files, so they routinely arrive in March, often pushing the recipient onto an extension. They vary wildly in format from one fund to the next, frequently include multi-state filing obligations, and carry footnotes that matter — which is precisely why consumer aggregators built around bank and brokerage feeds simply can't ingest them.
How Formation handles it
Formation parses K-1 PDFs into a structured view of how each line flows into your AGI picture, so private-fund and entity income is visible alongside everything else instead of sitting in a folder until April. It organizes the documents by entity and surfaces the figures your CPA will need — without claiming to replace the return your CPA prepares.
A worked example
You're an LP in three private funds and a beneficiary of a family trust. That's four K-1s, each arriving in March in a different format, several with income sourced to states you don't live in. Tracked together as they arrive, they're a planning input; left in an inbox, they're a scramble that pushes your whole return onto extension.
Frequently asked
When do K-1s usually arrive?
Often in March, sometimes later, because the entity has to file its own return first. Recipients of multiple K-1s frequently file a personal extension to wait for them all.
Can I file my taxes before I get all my K-1s?
Not accurately. Each K-1 can affect multiple lines of your return, so most people with private-fund or entity income wait for every K-1 before filing — which is why an extension is common rather than a red flag.
In Formation
K-1 ingestion from PDF
See this in your own numbers.
Formation organizes your whole household by entity and cites every figure to its source — the context that makes terms like this actionable.
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