The potential functions of internal rotation around the C sp 23S bond in the C 6 H 5 S(O)CH 3 and C 6 H 5 S(O)CF 3 molecules were obtained by ab initio MP2(full)/6-31+G* calculations. The stationary points were identified by solving the vibrational problems. The structures in which the plane of the C sp 23S3C sp 3 bonds is approximately perpendicular to the benzene ring plane correspond to the energy minimum. The barriers to rotation around the C sp 23S bond, corrected for the zero-point vibration energy, are 21.29 [C 6 H 5 S(O)CH 3 ] and 28.98 [C 6 H 5 S(O)CF 3 ] kJ mol !1 . The bond angles (deg) are as follows: 95.7 (CSC), 107.1 (C sp 2SO), 106.3 (C sp 3SO) in C 6 H 5 S(O)CH 3 ; 93.5 (CSC), 108.2 (C sp 2SO), 105.2 (C sp 3SO) in C 6 H 5 S(O)CF 3 . The bond lengths are as follows (A): 1.520 (S=O), 1.804 (C sp 23S), 1.810 (C sp 33S) in C 6 H 5 S(O)CH 3 ; 1.507 (S=O), 1.799 (C sp 23S), 1.870 (C sp 33S) in C 6 H 5 S(O)CF 3 . According to the results of NBO calculations, the formally double S=O bond consists of a strongly polarized covalent s bond (S6O) and an almost ionic bond.An increase in the S=O bond multiplicity relative to a single bond is mainly due to hyperconjugation by the mechanism n(O)6s*(C sp 23S) and n(O)6s*(C sp 33S) and, to a lesser extent, by interaction of the oxygen lone electron pairs with the Rydberg orbitals of the S atoms, characterized by a large contribution of the d component.