Compare major types of business structures.

Comparison should include definitions, advantages, disadvantages, and examples of the following:

• Sole proprietorship—owned by one person
• Partnership—owned by a small group of people, usually two or three
  • General partnership
  • Limited partnership
• Corporation—owned by shareholders and operated under written permission from the state, with a separate legal personality from its owners
• Limited liability company (LLC)—hybrid form of business that has characteristics of both a corporation and a partnership
• Limited liability partnership (LLP)—allows partners to enjoy limited personal liability, while general partners have unlimited liability
• S-corporation—meets specific Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code requirements that give a corporation with 100 or fewer employees the benefit of incorporation while being taxed as a partnership
• Franchise—business opportunity that allows the franchisee to start a business by legally using someone else’s (the franchisor’s) expertise, ideas, and processes
• Nonprofit organization—formed to carry out a charitable, educational, religious, cultural, or scientific purpose; does not pay federal or state income taxes on profits from activities in which it engages to carry out its objectives
• Cooperative—an association of persons united voluntarily to meet common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise