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It does if you're actually incorporating (C or S corp). You'll need to at least file both federal and state returns. And in many cases you'll need to pay money even if your business earned $0.

An LLC setup as a passthrough can get away with filing personal returns, but that only works for small freelance operations. Once you've got payroll or investors it's constant paperwork hassle.

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Having payroll is always a tax hassle, but I've been at passthrough-structured LLCs with employees and mid-high 7 figure revenue (at some point, you start filing as an S for your LLC).

But can we get back to the original thing here? Creating an LLC in the US is trivial and does not require accounting.

Payroll is relatively simple for a basic LLC. You can use a service like Rippling or a local CPA to do it for you. Usually costs around $40 per month per employee.

S Corp filings are drop dead simple. The tax return may take a CPA’s help if your structure is complicated or you want to get the absolute best tax breaks possible.

Yes it could be simpler - jurisdictions like Estonia figured this out.

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