Cardinal Ridge Hardware has fifteen Kentucky dates in 2026, and the Department's April 15 line names pass-through entities the tool does not date

The moment

Cardinal Ridge Hardware is a hardware and farm-supply store in Winchester, Kentucky. Walt Prewitt bought it from the previous owner in 2019 and sells fencing, feed, plumbing parts and paint to farms and homeowners across the county. It has three W-2 employees besides him and is taxed as an S corporation. Kentucky sales tax is collected at the counter. It is the first day of October and Walt is laying out next year's tax sheet, which he does every fall.

What they did instead

Walt kept a paper calendar on the back office wall with "sales tax, 20th" in red on every month. He wrote the same date in June, September and December even though the 20th falls on a weekend in all three, so he filed those three returns on the Friday before, two days earlier than the Department wanted them. The estimated payments were worse. He paid them when his accountant phoned, which in two years out of three was the week the feed supplier's invoice was also due. Nobody had put the Kentucky dates, the federal dates and the payroll dates on one sheet.

The questions a CFO asks first

1. How many Kentucky dates does the store have in 2026, and which of them are not the 20th?
2. What does the year look like if Kentucky has the store file quarterly instead of monthly?
3. How many of the owner's estimated payments does the tool date, and which does it leave off?
4. What would a calendar-year C corporation have to pay Kentucky that an S corporation does not, and what does the Department's April 15 line say about the S corporation?

The arithmetic, shown

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

Scenario one: monthly, the schedule the store is on. The tool returns twenty-five dated line items. Twelve are Kentucky sales-tax returns, three are Kentucky individual estimated payments, and ten are federal payroll and federal estimated-tax lines. The Kentucky dates all come from the Department's 2026 calendar, which states the weekend rule on its own page:

> NOTE: If a return due date falls on a state scheduled holiday or weekend, returns will be due the next working day.

For a monthly filer the calendar prints every date, with the weekend move already applied:

> Sales Tax (Monthly): January 20, February 20, March 20, April 20, May 20, June 22, July 20, August 20, September 21, October 20, November 20, December 21.

Three of the twelve are not the 20th. June 20 is a Saturday, September 20 is a Sunday and December 20 is a Sunday, so the returns move to

> 2026-06-22

> 2026-09-21

and

> 2026-12-21

All three are Mondays. The owner's estimated payments fall on April 15, June 15 and September 15, the same days as the federal schedule, so on each of those three days Walt has two payments to make. The Department labels each of them

> Estimated Tax/Individuals/One Fourth Estimate.

There are three Kentucky estimates on the sheet, where the federal schedule has four. The tool says why the fourth is missing, and what else is missing with it:

> The Department's calendar covers 2026 only, so the fourth individual installment (January 2027), the January 2027 sales-tax return and the first C corporation payment of 2027 aren't listed.

It also says plainly what it is not asserting about the estimates:

> This tool doesn't ask whether a Kentucky estimated payment is actually owed, so it shows the schedule that would apply if one is.

Scenario two: quarterly. Suppose Kentucky assigns a lower-volume schedule. The tool returns sixteen items, and the Department's calendar prints the dates:

> Sales Tax (Quarterly): April 20, July 20, October 20.

The tool dates all three,

> 2026-04-20

> 2026-07-20

and

> 2026-10-20

Three returns replace twelve, so the store has nine fewer Kentucky sales-tax dates. A January 2027 return would follow, and it is off the sheet because the calendar stops at 2026.

Scenario two (b): a schedule the tool does not date. The tool returns thirteen items and no Kentucky sales-tax date at all. The federal lines and the three Kentucky estimates are still there. The tool names the gap and the reason:

> Annual filers and accelerated filers (who pay on the 25th or 26th) have different dates

so the sheet tells Walt to read his Kentucky Online Tax System account for the schedule Kentucky 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 Kentucky 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-five. The individual schedule goes. Federal Form 1120 and four Form 1120-W deposits arrive, along with five Kentucky corporate dates: four estimated payments on April 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15, and one annual return on April 15. The Department's April 15 entry for the return reads

> Corporation Income Tax/LLET and Pass-through Entity Return and Payment Due (FY ending 12/31)

and its estimate entries read

> Estimated Corporation Income Tax/Limited Liability Entity Tax/One Fourth Estimate (FY ending 12/31)

So April 15 carries four items at once: the federal Form 1120, the first Form 1120-W deposit, the first Kentucky estimate and the Kentucky annual return. A Kentucky C corporation has five Kentucky dates where the S corporation has three, and the last estimate is dated

> 2026-12-15

a month before the S corporation's own January 15, 2027 federal date. There is no March date here, unlike a state whose first corporate payment falls before any federal one: Kentucky's first lands on the same day as the federal return.

Scenario four (b): the same corporation, tax year unconfirmed. Mark the corporation's tax year as not calendar-year, or as unconfirmed, and the tool returns eighteen items. Ten dates disappear: five Kentucky and five federal (Form 1120 and the four 1120-W deposits). The twelve sales-tax returns stay. The tool gives the reason:

> This corporation's tax year isn't calendar-year, or isn't confirmed as one, so no Kentucky corporate date is computed here; the Department's calendar lists fiscal-year dates month by month, so check revenue.ky.gov directly.

What changed

Walt has all twelve return dates for 2026 on the same sheet as his estimated payments and payroll dates. The red "20th" on the wall calendar is twelve dated lines, three of which are Mondays after a weekend. The three estimates have dates he wrote down, and the tool says the fourth is not on the sheet. The number to watch is the filing frequency. Twelve dates or three is the Department'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 store is on. Kentucky assigns it, so the tool asks and builds dates from the answer. It will not compute the tax owed on any return or payment. It covers the base dates and leaves out a lot that the Department also has:

> This tool doesn't cover Kentucky withholding, pass-through returns (S corporation and partnership), accelerated sales-tax filers, the annual sales-tax return, or local taxes.

That list matters for Cardinal Ridge specifically. It is an S corporation, and the Department's April 15 line, quoted above, names a pass-through entity return and payment on the same day it names the corporation return. The tool dates that line only for a C corporation. For the S corporation it puts no Kentucky entity-level date on the sheet and does not ask whether one applies. Kentucky withholding on the three employees' wages is also off the sheet. The tool will not know about an extension, a payment plan or a penalty already assessed on any date above, and it lists only 2026 dates, so the January 2027 items are left off. 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.