Tennessee offers a valuable tax exemption for qualifying family-owned non-corporate entities (FONCE), allowing them to be exempt from the state's franchise and excise taxes. This exemption is particularly beneficial for families engaged in passive investments or farming.

If you are a corporation, limited partnership (LP), limited liability company (LLC), or business trust. . .chartered, qualified, or registered in Tennessee or doing business in this state, then you must register for and pay franchise and excise taxes. This sometimes comes as a surprise to people who incorporate or create their entities in another state (like Delaware, Nevada, or Wyoming) but then do business or own property inside that entity in the State of Tennessee.

Anyone who owns an LLC in Tennessee is liable for Franchise and Excise taxes unless they qualify for one of seventeen exemptions (the article referenced above lists all of them.) This article is going to focus on exemption #11: the Family Owned Non-Corporate Entity (FONCE) exemption.

Anyone conducting or transacting business in the State of Tennessee, who has their business registered in another state (for example, someone who has a Wyoming LLC but who runs their business out of a Tennessee location), must register with the State of Tennessee for a Certificate of Authority. That does not mean they have to have a Tennessee LLC, but they will have to pay fees and taxes that could make conducting business in Tennessee more expensive than they realize.