I would highly recommend against just paying yourself just cost-of-living. A low salary and high dividend is a big-time audit flag for the IRS... if your salar

I would highly recommend against just paying yourself just cost-of-living. A low salary and high dividend is a big-time audit flag for the IRS... if your salary AND your dividends are low, then there's no problem. You state that your company is profitable. In this case, if you pay yourself a low salary and get audited, the IRS can (and will) retroactively adjust your salary to whatever THEY feel is reasonable and comparable for a CEO of a successful small company. Then you will owe back taxes, penalties and interest on whatever amount they determine you cheated them out of. The process isn't very democratic and getting audited is a HUGE pain, so I'd recommend going with something reasonable in the 100K range to avoid scrutiny.