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Why Do Companies Avoid Double Taxation?

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When formatted as a partnership, a business’s revenues and expenses are passed to each partner directly to avoid double taxation. A corporation, however, will have its recognized revenues and expenses taxed before profits or losses are passed to the owners, who will then have their income taxed on a personal level (Hoyle, 2014, 630). A partnership will see a decrease in each partner’s cash assets as well as the possible liquidation of non-cash assets to pay for the damages that do occur. The decrease in the partners’ capital will reflect on the financial statements.
Since there is an estimate for the damages, $2,000,000, and the damages from the lawsuit are probable, Amazon’s income statement should record the damages as an expense and there …show more content…

This is one of the greatest benefits of forming a corporation as opposed to a partnership. “A corporation is viewed as legally separate from its owners, so losses cannot be passed through to them. A corporation has the ability to … carry forward remaining losses to decrease future taxable income (for up to 20 years)” (Hoyle, 2014, 630). However, there are times a shareholder can face personal liabilities, such as if the shareholder gives a personal guarantee. This is because a personal guarantee would mean the shareholder giving it is doing so independently of the corporation. Since we do not know the reasoning behind the lawsuit, it would be impossible to determine whether the lawsuit could affect any of the shareholders personally.
The ease of setting up a partnership and the avoidance of double taxation does come with disadvantages, the most notable of which being the risk of unlimited liability. If Amazon was set up as a partnership, each partner would be at risk for personal liability due to unlimited liability. The risk of unlimited liability means that “any partner can be held personally liable for all debts of the business” (Hoyle, 2014, 630). Even if the lawsuit was due to the error of one partner, all assets invested in the partnership as well as each partner’s personal assets are at

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