Business Structures
Choosing how your business is legally organized: sole proprietorship, the LLC and how it protects you, how to actually form one and why even a solo owner needs an operating agreement, S-corp versus C-corp and the reasonable-salary election, partnerships, single- versus multi-member LLCs, and nonprofits. The structure sets your personal liability and how you are taxed — the two things that matter most.
All Business Structures guides
- LLC Operating Agreement: Why Even a Solo Owner Needs One
An operating agreement isn't the paperwork that creates your LLC - it's the document that protects it. Here's why solo owners need one too.
- How to Form an LLC, Step by Step
The real order of steps to form an LLC: name, registered agent, state filing, operating agreement, free EIN, and state follow-ups.
- Buy-Sell Agreements for Co-Owned Businesses
A buy-sell agreement decides in advance who can buy a co-owner's share, at what price, and how it's funded, so death, divorce, or a falling-out don't force everyone into unwanted co-ownership.
- Sole Proprietorship: The Default Explained
A sole proprietorship is what you're in by default with no paperwork - full profit, but unlimited personal liability for business debts.
- Starting a Nonprofit and 501(c)(3) Basics
Incorporating a nonprofit doesn't make it tax-exempt. Here's the two-step process, what 501(c)(3) really requires, and who's in charge.
- Single-Member vs. Multi-Member LLC
Single-member LLCs default to Schedule C tax treatment; multi-member LLCs default to partnership taxation. Here's what changes and what stays the same.
- Partnerships: General, Limited, and LLP Explained
General partnerships mean unlimited personal liability for you and your partners' acts. Learn how LPs and LLPs change that, and why you need a written agreement.
- Business Succession Planning Basics
Plan now for who runs your business if you retire, get sick, or die — pick a successor, value the business, and pick a transfer path.
- Benefit Corporations and Certified B Corps
A benefit corporation is a state legal entity; a Certified B Corp is a private B Lab certification. Here's how they differ and when you need either.
- Adding a Partner or Co-Owner to Your Business
Adding a co-owner turns a sole proprietorship or single-member LLC into a partnership - here's what changes in taxes, filings, and liability.
- Series LLC: What It Is and Who Needs One
A series LLC lets one filing hold walled-off internal series. Only some states allow it, and the legal certainty outside those states is thin.
- Professional Corporations and PLLCs Explained
Why licensed professionals often must form a PC or PLLC instead of an ordinary LLC, and why it won't shield you from your own malpractice.
- What Is an LLC and How Does It Protect You?
What an LLC actually shields you from, its real limits, and how to keep the protection intact.
- The S-Corp Election and Paying Yourself a Reasonable Salary
S-corp taxation can lower your self-employment tax bill, but only if you pay yourself a genuinely reasonable salary first.
- Converting a Sole Proprietorship to an LLC
The practical steps to move from sole proprietor to LLC: naming, filing, EIN, bank account, contracts, insurance, and operating agreement.
- S-Corp vs. C-Corp: The Real Differences
S-corp and C-corp aren't types of corporations — they're federal tax elections. Here's the real structural difference, plain English.