Sole proprietorship
| This article is part of a series on |
| Corporate law |
|---|
 |
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2009) |
A sole proprietorship also known as a sole trader, or simply proprietorship is a type of business entity which is owned and run by one individual and where there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business. All profits and all losses accrue to the owner (subject to taxation). All assets of the business are owned by the proprietor and all debts of the business are their debts and they must pay them from their personal resources. This means that the owner has unlimited liability. It is a "sole" proprietorship in the sense that the owner has no partners (partnership).
A sole proprietor may do business with a trade name other than his or her legal name. Sometimes a sole proprietor is required to file a doing business as statement with a local government even if it is the same as his actual name[1] for certain types of businesses or as a requirement to open a business banking account.
Advantages
The main advantages of a sole proprietorship are that they are easy to start up, they are subject to fewer regulations relative to other types of businesses, the owner has full autonomy with regard to business decisions, and they are easy to discontinue. Another advantage is that one takes all the profits of the business. This is the main reason that most businesses are of this type. A sole proprietorship is not a corporation; it does not pay corporate taxes, but rather the person who organized the business pays self employment taxes on the profits made, making tax filing much simpler. A sole proprietorship also does not have to be concerned with double taxation, as a corporate entity would. A sole proprietor usually has a quick decision process and doesn't have any opposition when making a decision as he or she has total control of his or her business. All profits and losses accrue to the owner. The owner does not have the tension regarding conflicts among the partners as there are no partners. Also it's easy to set up, with having little paper work to fill in and little money spent on setting up, this is one of the easiest types of business to start.
Disadvantages
A business organized as a sole trader will likely have a hard time raising capital since it has to make up for all the business's funds. The owner of the business has unlimited liability as he is responsible for the business's debts because he has control over the business.
A disadvantage of a sole proprietorship is that as a business becomes successful, the risks accompanying the business tend to grow. To minimize those risks, a sole proprietor has the option of forming a corporation, or, more recently in America, a limited liability company.
|