Synthetic routes to alkyl and aryl substituted dithiophosphinate salts that contain non-coordinating PPh(4)(+) counter cations are reported. In general, these compounds can be prepared via a multi-step procedure that starts with reacting secondary phosphines, i.e. HPR(2), with two equivalents of elemental S. The synthetic transformation proceeds by oxidation of the phosphine followed by insertion of S into the H-P bond. This approach was used to synthesize a series of dithiophosphinic acids that were fully characterized, namely HS(2)P(p-CF(3)C(6)H(4))(2), HS(2)P(m-CF(3)C(6)H(4))(2), HS(2)P(o-MeC(6)H(4))(2) and HS(2)P(o-MeOC(6)H(4))(2). Although the insertion step was found to be much slower than the oxidation reaction, the formation of (NH(4))S(2)PR(2) from HPSR(2) occurred rapidly upon addition of NH(4)OH. Subsequent cation exchange reactions proceeded readily with PPh(4)Cl in water, under air and at ambient conditions to provide analytically pure samples of [PPh(4)][S(2)PR(2)] (R = p-CF(3)C(6)H(4), m-CF(3)C(6)H(4), o-CF(3)C(6)H(4), o-MeC(6)H(4), o-MeOC(6)H(4), Ph, and Me, 1b-7b, respectively), which were characterized by elemental analysis, multinuclear NMR, and IR spectroscopy. In addition, S(2)PPh(2)(-) and dithiophosphinates with ortho-substituted aryl groups (3b-6b) were characterized by X-ray crystallography. As opposed to the acids, which have short P=S double bonds and long P-SH single bonds, the metric parameters for the S atoms in S(2)PR(2)(-) are equivalent. In addition, the presence of large non-coordinating PPh(4)(+) cations guard against intermolecular P-S···X interactions and ensure that the P-S bond is isolated. These S(2)PR(2)(-) anions, which can be prepared in large quantities and isolated in crystalline form, are attractive for spectroscopic and theoretical studies because the P-S interaction can be probed independently in the absence of intermolecular interactions.