Business Entities and the Impact of E-Business on the Global Legal Environment
Business entities are an organized group of people who come together for a profitable or charitable purpose. In today's business world, there are a number of ways in which to legally organize and structure a business. Carefully choosing and creating the correct legal entity will ultimately have a huge impact on the success and profitability of the business venture. The basic types of business organizations include "sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited partnership, corporation, and [the] limited liability company" (Cheeseman, 2004, 605). Learning Team C will examine and discuss three of these business entities.
Various Business Entities and E-Business Examples
Sole Proprietorship
The most straightforward type of business entity, sole proprietorships, are owned and managed by one person as his or her personal property and therefore considered one legal entity. This entity is operated under the person's own name or registered under an assumed or trade name also known as "Doing Business As" (DBA) (Cheeseman, 2004, 607).
Mean Business
Miss Show Business
English: SOA Entity Abstraction Pattern Diagram AWhen creating a sole proprietorship there are no formalities and no federal or state approval needed from the government. Operating costs are also low and the owner can run the business from anywhere. The only requirement may be from a local government level to obtain a business license.
Personal liability of sole proprietorship
As a sole proprietor, any number of employees can be hired, with their paid wages and other business expenses deducted on the owner's personal tax return. Consequently, the owner is responsible for business profits and losses, which means that should the business fail, creditors can legally go after the owner's personal assets (Barnes, Dworkin, & Richards, 2006, 450). In addition, the owner of the business cannot sell shares of the business to gain outside funds. "There are no specific...