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Are you incorporated? I think you're required to pay yourself if you are, even if minimum wage. That would put it back on your balance sheet, and make the IRS happy.

(If its a sole proprietorship, I'm not sure shat the rules are)

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That's completely untrue. In fact, it's the opposite -- the IRS objects if you pay yourself more than a reasonable salary.

Why would they? If you pay yourself through income, they will get the most taxes through income tax.

If you're the sole owner of a corporation and also an employee, you can move money from the corporation to your own pocket by either paying yourself a salary or paying a dividend out of corporate profits.

At least prior to the recent corporate tax rate cut, the tax you'd pay on the salary would typically be less than the sum of corporate income tax and tax on the dividend, so people would pay themselves unreasonably large salaries to save on taxes, and the IRS would object to this.

Here's an article that goes into more detail:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2016/05/13/reasona...

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