Corporation vs. LLC vs. Partnership, Compared – Which is Right for You?

Comparing Corporations, LLCs, and Partnerships

The most common forms of business enterprises in use in the United States are the sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited liability company (LLC), and corporation. Each form has advantages and disadvantages in complexity, ease of setup, cost, liability protection, periodic reporting requirements, operating complexity, and taxation. Also, some business forms have subclasses, such as the C corporation, S corporation, and professional corporation. Choosing the right business form requires a delicate balancing of competing considerations.

The Corporation

The term corporation comes from the Latin corpus, which means body. Historically, in England the term corporation was also used for the local government body in charge of a borough. A corporation is a legal person in the eyes of the law. It can bring lawsuits, can buy and sell property, contract, be taxed, and even commit crimes.

Its most notable feature: a corporation protects its owners from personal liability for corporate debts and obligations within limits.

A corporation has perpetual life. When shareholders pass on or leave a corporation, they can transfer their shares to others who can continue a corporation’s business. A corporation is owned by its shareholders, managed by its board of directors, and in most cases operated by its officers. The shareholders elect the directors, who in turn appoint the corporate officers. In small corporations, the same person may serve multiple roles shareholder, director, and officer.

Corporations are ideal vehicles for raising investment capital. A corporation seeking to raise capital need only sell shares of its stock. The purchasing shareholders pay cash or property for their stock, and they then become part owners in the corporation. Of course, the sale of corporate stock is heavily regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and by state securities laws.

A corporation’s shareholders, directors, officers, and managers must observe particular formalities in a corporation’s operation and administration. For example, decisions regarding a corporation’s management must often be made by formal vote and must be recorded in the corporate minutes. Meetings of shareholders and directors must be properly noticed and must meet quorum requirements. Finally, corporations must meet annual reporting requirements in their state of incorporation and in states where they do significant business.

Advantages of the Corporation* Owners are protected from personal liability for company debts and obligations.

* Corporations have a reliable body of legal precedent to guide owners and managers.

* Corporations are the best vehicle for eventual public companies.

* Corporations can more easily raise capital through the sale of securities.

* Corporations can easily transfer ownership through the transfer of securities.

* Corporations can have an unlimited life.

* Corporations can create tax benefits under certain circumstances, but note that C corporations may be subject to ‘double taxation’ on profits.

Disadvantages of the Corporation

* Corporations require annual meetings and require owners and directors to observe certain formalities.

* Corporations are more expensive to set up than partnerships and sole proprietorships.

* Corporations require periodic filings with the state and annual fees.

The Limited Liability Company (LLC)

The limited liability company (LLC) is America’s newest form of business organization. There is little historical precedent for LLCs. They are essentially creations of the state legislatures, although some commentators trace the origin of the LLC to a 19th century form of business organization called the partnership association, or limited partnership association. The great bulk of laws authorizing LLCs in the United States were passed in the 1980s and 1990s. Wyoming passed the first law authorizing the LLC in 1977. Florida followed in 1982. The watershed event in the rise of the LLC was a 1988 Internal Revenue Service ruling that recognized partnership tax treatment for LLCs. Within six years, 46 states authorized LLCs as a business form. By 1996, Vermont, the last state to recognize LLCs, had an LLC statute in place.

The LLC is often described as a hybrid business form. It combines the liability protection of a corporation with the tax treatment and ease of administration of a partnership. As the name suggests, it offers liability protection to its owners for company debts and liabilities.

LLC: Simplicity and Flexibility

While LLCs are essentially new creations of state legislatures, corporations are truly ancient and today’s corporate law still carries some unwanted baggage. The modern American corporation has antecedents that date to Roman times, inherited by us through English law. The basic principles of American corporate law have not changed significantly in centuries. Probably the single greatest disadvantage of the corporate form is the burdensome range of formalities that corporate managers must observe. A modern corporation’s heavy administrative burden is a remnant of the more traditional and formal legal system under which corporate law was cultivated.

The LLC changed all that. The LLC offers the liability protection benefits of the corporation without the corporation’s burdensome formalities. It is this simplicity that has made the LLC an instantly popular business form with businesspersons operating smaller companies.

LLC management can elect to be taxed either as partnerships or as corporations. LLCs can be managed like partnerships (a member-managed LLC) or like corporations (manager-managed LLC). LLCs can create a board of directors, and can have a president and officers just like a corporation. LLCs can choose to have periodic meetings of their membership, or they can choose to ignore such formalities altogether.

Potential Disadvantages of the Limited Liability Company

The LLC does carry some disadvantages that make it an undesirable business form for some purposes. The limited liability company is a new business form, and courts have not yet developed a body of legal precedent governing LLCs. Thus, LLC owners and professionals may face operating questions and issues for which they have little or no legal guidance. That said, this concern lessens as the states develop a reliable body of law concerning LLCs, and is no issue at all for very small companies.

Furthermore, for companies that wish to pursue venture capital, accumulate a large number of shareholders, and/or eventually pursue an initial public offering, the LLC is not an appropriate alternative to a corporation. Venture capitalists and angel investors tend to shy away from investing in LLCs. That may change in the future. Today though, all large, publicly-held companies are corporations, not LLCs.

What should the owners of an LLC do if their company grows in size such that an LLC is no longer the appropriate business form? The answer is simple: it is possible to convert an LLC into a corporation. Thus, some small companies begin life as LLCs, outgrow the LLC form, and then the LLC’s owners transfer the assets of the LLC to a newly formed corporation with the same owners as the LLC. Thereby, the LLC is converted to a corporation.

LLCs are the favorite choice for entities with one to three owners working in a small local business who do not plan to grow significantly and do not expect to raise significant amounts of capital. As the number of owners grows, the corporation becomes a more attractive choice as a business form.

Advantages of the LLC

* LLCs do not require annual meetings and require few ongoing formalities.

* Owners are protected from personal liability for company debts and obligations.

* LLCs enjoy partnership-style, pass-through taxation, which is favorable to many small businesses.

Disadvantages of the LLC

* LLCs do not have a reliable body of legal precedent to guide owners and managers, although LLC law is becoming more reliable as time passes.

* Not an appropriate vehicle for businesses seeking to become public eventually, or to raise money in the capital markets.

* More expensive to set up than partnerships.

* Usually requires periodic filings with the state, and annual fees.

* Some states do not allow the organization of LLCs for certain professional vocations.

The Partnership

A partnership is a business form created automatically when two or more persons engage in a business enterprise for profit. Consider the following language from the Uniform Partnership Act: ‘The association of two or more persons to carry on as co-owners of a business for profit forms a partnership, whether or not the persons intend to form a partnership.’ A partnership in its various forms offers its multiple owners flexibility and relative simplicity of organization and operation. In limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships, a partnership can even offer a degree of liability protection.

The following are examples of partnerships:

1. Jake and Nancy open a convenience store together and have an attorney draft a formal partnership agreement between them.

2. Jake and Nancy agree orally to join together to run a convenience store and split the profits 50/50. (Note the warning against forming oral partnerships!)

Partnerships can be formed with a handshake and often they are. Responsible partners, however, will seek to have their partnership arrangement memorialized in a partnership agreement, preferably with the assistance of an attorney. Because partnerships can be formed so easily, partnerships are often formed accidentally through oral agreements. A partnership is formed whenever two or more persons engage jointly in business activity to pursue profit.

Don’t operate a partnership without a written partnership agreement! Because of its informality and ease of formation, the partnership is the most likely business form to result in disputes and lawsuits between owners oral partnership arrangements are usually the reason.

The following is NOT an example of a partnership:

Jake and Nancy agree that Nancy will work at Jake’s existing plumbing business; he will pay her a salary, and he will pay her a bonus based on the amount of profit the business earns. Nancy is merely an employee with a profit-sharing bonus, not a partner.

The cost to have an attorney draft a partnership agreement can vary between $500 and $2,000 depending on the complexity of the partnership arrangement and the experience and location of the attorney.

Advantages of the Partnership

* Owners can start partnerships relatively easily and inexpensively.

* Partnerships do not require annual meetings and require few ongoing formalities.

* Partnerships offer favorable taxation to most smaller businesses.

* Partnerships often do not have to pay minimum taxes that are required of LLCs and corporations.

 

Disadvantages of the Partnership

* All owners are subject to unlimited personal liability for the debts, losses, and liabilities of the business (except in the cases of limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships).

* Individual partners bear responsibility for the actions of other partners.

* Poorly organized partnerships and oral partnerships can lead to disputes among owners.

In my law practice, I would almost never recommend a partnership to clients. The lack of liability protection is simply not an acceptable risk that I could ever recommend that a business owner undertake. On the rare occasion where I recommended a partnership was when a corporation or LLC was legally unavailable to the owners, as is the case with law partnerships, for example. Another example would be when all the owners of the partnership were already liability protected entities, such as when two LLCs come together as owners of a partnership.

The following Business Form Comparison Table outlines the various features of corporations, LLCs, partnerships and sole proprietorships.

	Corporation	Limited Liability Company	Partnership	Sole Proprietorship
Ease of setup	More Difficult	More Difficult	Less Difficult	Easy
Initial costs such as filing fees, state fees, and legal fees	High	High	Medium to high	Low
Owners are personally protected from liability for the organization’s debts	Yes	Yes	No, except in limited partnerships	No
Entity must make annual or biennial state filings	Yes	Yes	Almost never	No
Entity must pay annual or biennial state sees	Yes	Yes	Almost never	No
Annual meetings	Required by law, except for close corporations	Not required, but recommended	Not required, but recommended	No
Formalities required in connection with voting and internal governance	Yes	Relaxed formalities	Relaxed formalities	No
Can Exist Indefinitely	Yes	Yes	Yes*	No
Can Issue Shares or Interest in Exchange for Cash	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Appropriate Entity to Raise Venture Capital	Yes	No	No	No
Appropriate Entity to Become Publicly Traded	Yes	No	No	No
Entity Can Elect To Be Taxed as a Corporation	Yes	Yes	No	No
Entity Can Elect To Be Taxed as Partnership	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Can choose fiscal year other than that of its owners	Yes	No	No	No
Owner can mingle personal and business assets and funds	No	No	No	Yes
Registration required in foreign states in which company does business?	Yes	Yes	No, except for limited partnerships	No
State laws governing entity are uniform throughout nation?	Laws vary widely	Laws vary moderately	Laws vary very little	Laws vary very little
Maximum Number of Members	Unlimited, but S Corp. maximum is 75 owners	Unlimited	Unlimited by law**	One

*Partnerships can, conceivably, have unlimited life if new partners are admitted into the partnership as old partners exit the partnership.

**While general partnerships are not limited in size by operation of law, prudence dictates that they not have too many partners. Because each partner is liable for the acts of the other partners acting on the partnership’s behalf, a large general partnership is not wise. Any general partnership of more than ten persons is likely to become difficult to manage.