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Business Structure Of The United States

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For many, the American dream involves owning a business and achieving financial stability. However, to achieve this American dream, one must create a business plan that involves the consideration of appropriate business structure. In the United States there are several business structures offered for consideration. Sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and limited liability companies have their advantages and disadvantages. Any new business must evaluate the available business forms to determine which structure will be the most advantageous to the new business. The three most important aspects to determining a business structure are taxation, liability, and growth opportunities (capital mainly). In a scenario involving the …show more content…

Sole proprietorships are simple to set up and simple to begin conducting business. However, there are several significant drawbacks to sole proprietorship. Sole proprietorship has one owner and is therefore limited in its access to capital (Cole, 2011). Without access to additional capital, a business could struggle and would be unable to grow. Another significant drawback is legal liability. Given that there is only one owner, all liability resides with the one owner (Cole, 2011). This sole legal liability puts the owner’s personal property and business property at risk. In the business case involving Mr. Picard and Ms. Crusher, sole proprietorship is not an available option due to the presence of two owners and the concern of legal liability. The Final Frontier would be not appropriate as a sole proprietorship. Partnership Similar to a sole proprietorship, a partnership business structure is simple to create. There are no legal forms to file and agreements between the partners are not required (Kubasek, Browne, Herron, Dhooge, & Barkacs, 2016). A partnership business structure allows two people to combine resources to enhance business profits (Winrow, 2008). With the addition of another owner, capital funds are increased, resulting in additional growth potential. Another advantage to engaging in a partnership is the method of taxation. Income in a partnership flows through as personal income;

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