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in this video i'm going to look at limited liability partnerships or llps and why you might want one i'm going to look at what is the difference between a limited liability partnership a normal partnership and a limited company how the taxation varies and how it how you are taxed and what paperwork you need to do if you have an llp this is part of a series of videos about tax and accounting issues so if you want to be kept up to date then please subscribe to the channel and if you press the like button just helps me get the message across so what is a llp an llp really is a hybrid between a normal partnership and a limited company so it gets away with one of the main disadvantage of having a just a simple partnership because when you have a simple partnership you sort of have this double jeopardy thing where not only are you personally liable for all the debts of the business you're also personally liable for the business decisions of your partner under joint and several liability so because of that partnerships outside of direct families have become less popular because the onus on you can be onerous so a limited liability partnership is a little bit like a limited company because you have limited liability you have to register with companies house you have to file accounts to companies house and you need to keep companies house informed just like you would but slightly different format to a limited company the big difference to a limited company is it is actually how it's taxed so in a partnership and in a limited liability partnership the taxation on the profits falls on the partners so the partnership itself does not pay tax the profits are divvied up to the partners they put it on their tax returns and then they've pay tax and they're liable for the tax this is different to a limited company where the company profit is assessed and the company pays the tax on that profit so that perhaps is the most important difference between a limited company and a partnership but there are other differences the main ones are that in a partnership you can split the profits however you like whereas in a limited company you should split the profits in line with the number of shares that they own now to some extent you can get around that with an abc share structure but in principle the flexibility is gained from having a partnership rather than a limited company it's also generally easier but if people come into the business together or leave from having being in business together so entering and leaving partners is easier in a limited liability or a normal partnership and just a little bit messier if you have a limited company but the main difference between a limited company and an llp is the tax and although the main thing is how they're taxed there are also some important differences that affect how much you're assessed on so let's just have a look at those so the first and important thing is that in a limited company you have control over whether you pay higher rate of tax because in a limited company you make the choice as to whether the income of the company becomes the profits through dividends and are paid out as dividends and therefore become the income of the shareholders in a partnership the profit is simply assessed on the partners so therefore you lose control over whether you pay higher rate tax or not so that can be really important and particularly important if your your income fluctuates or if you don't take all the money out of the business and that really leads me on to the next thing which is retained profits so in a limited company the rate retained profits that's the profit you retained to grow the business are simply taxed at the corporation tax rate which at the time recording was 19 but in a partnership all the profits are taxed on the partners and that might mean that the profits that you retain in the business can be taxed at the highest rates that you pay so it might be 40 45 high rates of tax so that makes it really difficult for partners partnerships um to to accumulate reserves to grow their business on a slightly more fun level uh cars cars are treated very differently in a limited company um if you have a normal car not an electric car or truck if you have a normal car you'll be taxed as a benefiting kind or you would with the others but the tax becomes substantial in a normal car so your taxes are benefiting kind and that normally means that you don't want the car in the company but you might want a car in the partnership because it counts as a part business par private asset and that proportion of the car that is used in the business you can charge the business now that all might sound all very complicated basically what it means is that normally in a partnership you pay a lot less tax any cars than you do if it's in a limited company and that can change change the dynamics particularly if you like expensive cars that use a lot of fuel the next thing that i want to look at is directors loan accounts directors loan accounts can be a bit of a pain in a limited company and the if you get an overdrawn director's loan account um it can just be really difficult of course it causes me a lot of problems in a in a partnership that just goes away it's simply never a problem with it um so so that can be a difference and it can make a difference the other thing that it could just be worth mentioning is if you sell part of the business so if you have a professional practice for example where you're building up the practice and then there's a bit that you're not sure isn't really fit and you sell that bit off generally speaking well as a matter of fact the tax is very different in a limited company to in a partnership and very often in a partnership you will be paying less tax overall through selling that part of the business then you would be in a limited company so there again being in a partnership can in that case be beneficial so there's lots of things going on that's why that's what makes it interesting um generally speaking actually you pay less tax in a limited company um but the the company car thing can make a difference the retained profits can you know goes the other way so there's a there's quite a lot of things that go on so it does depend on your circumstances it might just be worth looking at the sort of business that does have a limited liability partnership structure and probably by far the most common taught is a professional partnership so why would a professional partnership have an llp structure well the reason is because you just got to think about what they do so they often don't retain the profits so they often take out most of the profits because a professional partnership doesn't have many assets so they'll take out most of the profits so therefore the retained profit problem just isn't an issue because they take them out anyway they often have partners leaving and joining the partnership in the large partnership every year so therefore um therefore they they want that flexibility and that ease they don't want you to be buying and selling shares in the company each time that happens and also very
Thanks for your comment Gregg Bonier, have a nice day.
- Magnolia Alexender, Staff Member
what is the difference between an llc and a partnership hey everyone adam bergman here tax attorney and founder of ira financial so a lot of people have heard about an llc right if you're starting a business the llc is the most popular entity form for new business owners you probably have also heard of a partnership right generally when two or more people come together in some form of joint venture it's generally considered a partnership and heck my marriage is a partnership not that i control the partnership but it's a partnership two people coming together so what's the difference why do we need llc's if we have partnerships why are people not doing partnerships anymore good questions right so i'm going to give you the answers this video not going to have to be too long because you'll see in the next couple of minutes why most i would say close to 95 of all new businesses are llc's so an llc is a type of partnership like a partnership again i draw triangles for partnerships so partnership and an llc both flow throughs right no entity level tax so with a corporation again think of a big box there's two layers of tax it's the corporate level tax which is taxed at 21 percent now and then there's the shareholder level which is taxed at the shareholder level so if someone makes a hundred dollars at a corporation entity pays 21 whatever's left that's dividend up would be subject to the qualified dividend tax which is two taxes an llc in partnership one tax the partnership does not pay any tax the llc doesn't pay any tax they're both float through entities good so that's good okay lcs as we know limited liability company the first lc statute was in wyoming in 1978. by 1979 the irs accepted and agreed that llc should be treated as partnerships and by the early 80s every state recognized llc's so llcs you could say uh were born out of the partnership family this is the main difference between a partnership in the llc pretty simple when you have a partnership you need two partners right you generally need a limited partner or partners and a general partner so think of a triangle with two steps right one's a gp general partner one's a limited partner now you can have a million limited partners in fact a lot of hedge funds and private equity firms still use the partnership model even though they don't have to we'll see they can do an llc gp the general partner the one thing is the general partner has general liability right so that means there's no limited liability protection for the gp now again you can always set up an entity as the gp to shield the gp from limited liability protection which is what hedge funds and private equity funds do but comparing the partnership to the llc the gp has liability okay so if you are the gp of a partnership and you don't have an entity not sure why you wouldn't but let's say you just aren't smart enough or don't have a good enough lawyer to get an entity that protects you as a gp and god forbid there's any issues with the partnership the lps the limited partners are good they're protected they have limited liability protection the gp doesn't so the gp would be on the hook for all the debts and liabilities of the all of the partnership okay so this model is used again by still by many many hedge funds and private equity firms and we'll see now let's go to the llc an llc again triangle there's no need to have a gp or an lp because all the members of the lc have limited liability protection so whether it's one or a thousand members they all have limited liability protection so yes the llc can have a manager that doesn't have to be a member or it could be a member but there's still limited liability protection meaning creditors of an llc can only attack what's inside of that triangle they can't get and go after each of the members of the llc in the case of a partnership you can always go after the gp now again the gps can just set up an llc but why do you even do that right like that's what's happening is you have a partnership model and a lot of these investment funds where you have that triangle you have the lps let's say there's 100 limited partners investors and then you have a gp management and they have an llc around that gp to protect them okay fine but why not just do an llc right you have more flexibility you don't need to bother with the gp you can just have an llc where you can have different classes of ownership you can still have in the management section of the operating agreement you can still have a third party manage it you can still deal with your carried interest you don't need a partnership model so yeah there's a trend in some of the old school investment funds still do the partnership framework there's really no need for it honestly there's zero need for a partnership it is so rare to see anyone set up a partnership over an lc i when i see rare i mean it never happens for business owners some medical practices depending on the state some law firms need to have the partnership model accounting firms in some states architecture firms but i'm talking business there's no need to set up a partnership so if you're watching this and like for some reason you have this like partnership id in your head get rid of it go llc go s corp go c corp no need to go partnership because you're gonna have to find a gp that's gonna potentially be on the hook for all the debts and liabilities of the llc yeah you're going to say adam yeah you just said you can put an llc around gp so he's protected or she's protected yeah you're right but why do it what's the point just do the llc you get the limited liability protection pass-through taxation you have the flexibility from a tax standpoint there's no entity level tax single member llcs do not file a special entity tax return to schedule c on your 1040. if you have multiple members you follow 1065 also state partnership return but again there's no entity level tax right so you have the same benefits of the partnership but you have unlimited limited liability protection and you have to deal with with really an old type of structure that really doesn't have much application today so there you go actually i could summarize this video in like 20 seconds if you're choosing between the partnership and the llc go lc you're not going to win doing the partnership there's really zero benefits same tax advantages you get more limited liability protection and just more flexibility so there you go i'm taking off my lawyer hat and coming back to you it as adam the ira guy i hope you found this uh video helpful um i know it was fun and um llc is gonna beat the partnership you know every time you
Thanks godunovK your participation is very much appreciated
- Magnolia Alexender
About the author
I've studied latin american history at Northpoint Bible College in Haverhill and I am an expert in ethnolinguistics. I usually feel ditzy. My previous job was wildlife control agent I held this position for 16 years, I love talking about djing and yo-yoing. Huge fan of McFly I practice alpine skiing and collect militaria.
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