Under South Carolina law, a business may incorporate. If it chooses to do so, it is thereafter identified as its own legal entity. As a separate entity from the owners, the business is then considered to be functioning on its own when it buys and sells property, assents to contracts and exercises legal rights. A business looking to incorporate in South Carolina must file with the Secretary of State in accordance with established guidelines.

Benefits of Incorporation in South Carolina

There are distinct advantages to incorporating a business. Most importantly, liabilities the business accrues may be satisfied only by assets that the owners have specifically invested in it. If the business had remained a personal asset of the owners, they could run the risk of losing their personal property to pay for the company's financial liabilities in case of default. Furthermore, banks in the Edgefield area prefer to evaluate the credit worthiness of a business as a whole rather than that of individual owners. This makes the process of receiving corporate loans simpler. Finally, a corporation's ownership stake is divided into equal slices or "shares" of stock, which make investments in the business much easier to transfer.

Costs of Incorporation

Along with a possible fee to apply for incorporation in South Carolina, there are other costs that corporations incur. The most important is that a corporation is taxed as its own entity. Disbursements to the owners of the corporation are also taxed as individual income, so this means earnings might be taxed twice. But this double taxation can be avoided with proper planning and help from a local Edgefield lawyer.