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Limited Liability Companies ( Llcs ) Essay

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Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) Rationale. The advent of the limited liability company in the 1990’s came about primarily to promote small business start-ups by providing substantial asset protection, simpler rules, and favorable state and local tax treatments (Millon, 2007; Riles & Whitlock, 2003: Vandervoort, 2004). LLCs are also typically easier and less expensive to form and manage than a corporation and quickly became the entity of choice (Hopson & Hopson, 2014). Similarities to corporations. Like corporations, LLCs are separate legal entities, and as with the shareholders of corporations, the members of LLCs are provided significant asset protection from creditors and other stakeholders (Riles & Whitlock, 2003) by limiting the liability to the amount of the capital contribution (Albert, 2015). This shifts the risk of failure and insolvency from the members to the creditors (Millon, 2007).
Differences from corporations. Many of the differences between LLCs and corporations have been the crux in the area of litigation, the first being the lack of corporate formalities. Unlike a corporation, an LLC can be managed by its members or appointed managers and does not require periodic meetings. Although every state now has LLC legislation (Albert, 2015) which impose default fiduciary duties, these duties can be modified or eliminated altogether by the members of the LLC (Raju & Remming, 2012). As opposed to corporations following FASB ASC 105 – Generally

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