It’s funny, that pizza shop on the corner doesn’t benefit from liability protections. It is their ass on the line, which is why people running personally-owned places tend to actually worry about accountability.
And why, yes, you can easily lose your home and shit if your all-in restaurant place goes tits up. Maybe we need more liability protections for those without enough money, in turn we need less or none who’d have the money to pay for the damages they cause to others livelihood?
Sorry, with the greatest respect, this is incorrect.
Here in Australia you can register a company by paying the regulator fees of about $600 AUD (about half a weeks average wage). Thereafter you can start selling pizzas anjoying the limited liability of your corporate structure.
There are of course exceptions and caveats, notably your landlord will almost certainly ask for a personal guarantee - so you have to pay the lease even if the company goes tits up, but that’s mitigated by your ability to assign the lease to another tenant if you wish.
You might be thinking of publicly listed companies which are listed on the stock exchange. Those are subject to a much higher level of scrutiny and rigorous regulation which is indeed out of reach of “mum and dad” businesses, but that’s not a requirement for limited liability.
Of course, plenty of people don’t bother talking to a CPA before starting a business, or a company may be inadvisable for whatever reason, and they end up trading without a corporate trading structure, and have no limited liability.
It’s funny, that pizza shop on the corner doesn’t benefit from liability protections. It is their ass on the line, which is why people running personally-owned places tend to actually worry about accountability.
And why, yes, you can easily lose your home and shit if your all-in restaurant place goes tits up. Maybe we need more liability protections for those without enough money, in turn we need less or none who’d have the money to pay for the damages they cause to others livelihood?
Sorry, with the greatest respect, this is incorrect.
Here in Australia you can register a company by paying the regulator fees of about $600 AUD (about half a weeks average wage). Thereafter you can start selling pizzas anjoying the limited liability of your corporate structure.
There are of course exceptions and caveats, notably your landlord will almost certainly ask for a personal guarantee - so you have to pay the lease even if the company goes tits up, but that’s mitigated by your ability to assign the lease to another tenant if you wish.
You might be thinking of publicly listed companies which are listed on the stock exchange. Those are subject to a much higher level of scrutiny and rigorous regulation which is indeed out of reach of “mum and dad” businesses, but that’s not a requirement for limited liability.
Of course, plenty of people don’t bother talking to a CPA before starting a business, or a company may be inadvisable for whatever reason, and they end up trading without a corporate trading structure, and have no limited liability.