Читать книгу Start Your Own Corporation - Garrett Sutton - Страница 15

The best place to start the discussion of good entities is with corporations. They have evolved over the last five hundred years to become the most commonly used entity for conducting business.

As Robert Kiyosaki learned during his study of admiralty law, corporations came into common usage in the 1500s to protect investors in maritime ventures. Prior to the popular use of corporations, investors would come together as a partnership, outfit a ship, and send it out for trading purposes. If the ship was lost at sea, the investors could not only lose everything but also be personally sued by various creditors. Of course, this exposure deterred people from risk taking and discouraged economic activity. Seeing this, the English Crown and courts allowed for the charter of corporations whereby risks and liabilities could be limited to the corporation itself.

The shareholders, the investors in the corporation, were liable only to the extent of their contribution to the business. This was a significant development in world economic history.