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CORPORATION: One of the three basic forms of business organization (the other two are proprietorship and partnership). A corporation is a business established through ownership shares (termed corporate stock). A corporation is considered a distinct legal person, that can be sued, forced to pay taxes, etc., just like a human person. Unlike proprietorships and partnerships businesses, a corporation business exists separately from its owners. As such, the owners have what lawyer-types term limited liability. Owners cannot be held personally responsible for corporate debts. The owners can only lose the value of their ownership shares, but no more.

LEGAL TYPES: The three primary types of legal firm organizations are: (1) proprietorship, (2) partnership, and (3) corporation. One primary difference between these three legal types are number of owners -- proprietorship has one, partnership has two or more (but usually a small number), and corporation can have anywhere from one or to millions. A second difference is the liability of the owners -- proprietorship and partnership owners have unlimited liability and corporation owners have limited liability. Three newer firm types include (1) limited partnership, (2) S corporation, and (3) limited liability company. Each of these three are hybrids, with characteristics of proprietorship, partnership, corporation.

LIMITED PARTNERSHIP: A partnership in which one or more of the partners/owners has/have limited liability. This differs from regular partnerships in which each partner has unlimited liability. The limited partnership legal structure was created to provide liability protection to "partners" seeking investment opportunities, who did not want to participate in the actual management of the firm. While these limited partners are very much like corporation shareholders, the difference is that at least one partner must have unlimited liability.

LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY: A relatively new legal firm type that operates very much like a partnership, but in which every owner has limited liability. The advantage of a limited liability company, over a limited partnership, is that every owner has limited liability. It also has advantages over an S corporation in that very few restrictions exist on who can be an owner.

S CORPORATION: A legal firm type that is officially structured as a corporation, especially with limited liability of the owners, but is able to avoid the double taxation of profits through the use of a special section of the Internal Revenue Service tax code (Chapter S). The profit of an S corporation is considered the income of its owners and is thus taxable only as individual income. There are, however, limits on who can be an owner of an S corporation.

LIMITED LIABILITY: A condition in which owners are not personally held responsible for the debts of by a firm. Corporations are the main form of business in which owners have limited liability. The primary benefit of limited liability is that it makes it possible for a business to accumulate large amounts of productive resources that lets it take advantage of large scale production.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16