Legal Structure

This week we studied about different legal structure within businesses.  There are several and each seems to have many pros and cons.

I personally feel that choosing a legal structure for your business is almost as important as choosing your business itself.  You need to decide what type of liability you are willing to take with your business.  How large your business is, or will become etc.

I chose to stay with a legal structure that I was familiar with.  I chose to stick with a Sole Proprietorship or DBA (Doing Business As).  I and my mom have a business we have already set up as a DBA, so this was one less step that I had to take in order to get my online business up and going.

This particular legal structure holds us completely liable for all taxes and any other problems that may arise as a "business entity" because the business entity is really just us. This may sound a bit scary, but our business really doesn't have a large risk with it.  We sell handcrafted items such as blankets, jewelry, etc.  None of the items we sell tend to be "big ticket" items, nor items that have a large potential of causing personal harm or injury. 

As you can see there is a lot to think about when choosing your legal structure.  However, with the right planning and talking with the right professionals you can choose the right legal structure for your business, and have a much easier first fiscal year.