Wiregrass Boiled Peanut Co. has thirteen Alabama dates in 2026, and three of them are not the twentieth

The moment

Wiregrass Boiled Peanut Co. is a roadside shop and stand in Dothan, Alabama. Dale Pruitt started it in 2014 and now sells boiled and roasted peanuts, jarred sauces and gift tins. It has three W-2 employees besides Dale and is taxed as an S corporation. Alabama sales tax is collected at the counter. It is the first day of October and Dale is writing next year's dates on the office wall.

What they did instead

Dale's habit was the twentieth. Sales tax, twentieth, every month. In 2025 that was right for most months. It was wrong when the twentieth fell on a weekend, and he learned that the day a return went in a day late, with a letter to follow. The estimated tax was vaguer still. His accountant had said "quarterly" and he had read that as the federal dates. Nobody had put the Alabama dates, the federal dates and the payroll dates on one sheet.

The questions a CFO asks first

1. How many Alabama dates does the shop have, and how many of them are not the twentieth?
2. What does the year look like if Alabama has the shop file quarterly or once a year instead of monthly?
3. Which dates stack up on the same day as federal payroll filings?
4. What would a calendar-year C corporation have from Alabama that an S corporation does not?

The arithmetic, shown

Six scenarios, all through the tool's own engine, all built on Wiregrass's profile: an S corporation, three W-2 employees, no 1099 contractors, Alabama as the state, registered to collect Alabama sales tax.

Scenario one: monthly, the schedule the shop is on. The Department's Sales & Use page states the rule

> The returns and remittances are due on or before the 20th day of the month following the month during which the tax is accrued.

and the weekend rule

> If the due date falls on a weekend or holiday, the return must be electronically submitted or postmarked on or before the next working day to be timely filed.

The tool returns twenty-three dated line items. Thirteen are Alabama sales-tax returns, January 2026 through January 2027. The other ten are federal payroll and federal estimated-tax lines. Alabama publishes a rule, not a table of dates, so the tool works each date out. It says so:

> Alabama publishes these as rules (the 20th of the month after the period; the 15th of the 4th, 6th, 9th and 12th months) rather than a dated table, so this tool worked out each date and moved any that fall on a Saturday or Sunday to the next business day, as the Department's sales-tax page says.

Three of the thirteen are not the twentieth. June 20, 2026 is a Saturday, September 20 is a Sunday and December 20 is a Sunday. The tool dates them

> 2026-06-22

> 2026-09-21

and

> 2026-12-21

All three are Mondays. The other ten fall on a weekday and stay on the twentieth, the last of them Wednesday, January 20, 2027. The tool also checked each date by hand against Alabama's state holidays and none lands on one. The crowded day is February 2, 2026, with three items: the fourth-quarter Form 941, Form 940 and the W-2s. Alabama's January return is not among them. It is due February 20.

Scenario two: quarterly. Suppose Alabama had assigned the shop to a quarterly schedule. The tool returns fourteen items, not twenty-three, with four Alabama returns, dated

> 2026-04-20

> 2026-07-20

> 2026-10-20

and

> 2027-01-20

All four fall on weekdays, so none moves. Nine fewer lines on the wall, the same federal ten.

Scenario two (b): annual. The Department's page reads

> Annual: due on or before January 20 of the year following the year during which the tax is accrued.

The tool returns eleven items and one Alabama return, dated

> 2027-01-20

Scenario two (c): a schedule the tool does not date. Alabama also assigns some businesses a semiannual schedule. The tool returns ten items and no Alabama sales-tax date at all. The ten federal lines remain. It names the gap:

> Semiannual filers have their own pattern

and sends the owner to the Department's page and the My Alabama Taxes account for the schedule Alabama actually assigned.

Scenario three: the frequency not yet confirmed. With everything else answered and the filing frequency left blank, the tool does not guess. It returns a named refusal: missing: ["how often Alabama has this business file sales tax"]. Nothing computes until there is an answer.

Scenario four: the identical profile as a calendar-year C corporation. The tool returns twenty-eight items, not twenty-three. Federal Form 1120 and four Form 1120-W deposits arrive in place of the individual schedule, and four Alabama corporate estimates arrive with them. The Department's rule is

> quarterly estimated tax payments are required to be made by the 15th day of the 4th, 6th, 9th, and 12th months of the tax year.

For a calendar year that is April 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15, 2026. The tool dates the first

> 2026-04-15

and the last

> 2026-12-15

These are the same days as the federal Form 1120 and 1120-W dates, so April 15 carries three items and June 15, September 15 and December 15 two each. Alabama has seventeen dates for the corporation, thirteen returns and four estimates, against thirteen for the S corporation.

Scenario four (b): the same corporation, tax year unconfirmed. Mark the tax year as not calendar-year, or as unconfirmed, and the tool returns nineteen items. Nine dates disappear: four Alabama estimates and five federal (Form 1120 and the four 1120-W deposits). The thirteen sales-tax returns stay. The tool gives the reason:

> This tool only computes Alabama corporate dates for a calendar-year C corporation (tax year January-December). This corporation's tax year isn't calendar-year, or isn't confirmed as one, so no Alabama corporate date is computed here; the Department's rule counts months from the start of the tax year, so check revenue.alabama.gov directly.

What changed

Dale has thirteen return dates on the same sheet as his payroll dates. The twentieth on the wall is thirteen lines, three of them Mondays. The number to watch is the filing frequency. Thirteen dates, four or one is Alabama's assignment, and it changes the size of the sheet by more than any other single answer.

What the tool will not do

It will not decide which schedule the shop is on. Alabama assigns it, so the tool asks and builds dates from the answer. It will not compute the tax owed on any return or payment. And for Wiregrass specifically, the sheet is shorter than the real year. The tool's own note lists what is left off:

> This tool doesn't cover Alabama individual estimated payments (its page was not found this run), the C corporation annual return, withholding, pass-through returns (S corporation and partnership), semiannual sales-tax filers, or local sales taxes.

Wiregrass is an S corporation, so the owner's Alabama estimated payments, the pass-through return and Alabama withholding on the three employees' wages are all off the sheet. The tool found no page for the individual estimate dates, so an S corporation's Alabama calendar shows no estimate lines at all. That is a gap in the tool, not a statement that none are due. Local sales taxes are not covered either. The tool will not know about an extension, a payment plan or a penalty already assessed on any date above. This tool supports a named list of states, which the state picker in the tool shows, and every line above is the plain due date for the entity type it was told about.