What is a legal entity, and what preferences and responsibilities does it have? Who is that called? What gradations are there? And how do they differ from individuals? All these questions, as well as many others, will be answered in the framework of the article.
What is meant by a legal entity?
Article 48 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation defines that an organization is referred to as such a term, which has separate property in the ownership, operational management or economic management. She also answers them with her obligations. Also, this organization can, on its own behalf, buy non / property rights, act as a plaintiff and a defendant in court and bear obligations.
Key features
Organizations that function as
a legal entity have the following properties:
- The presence of separate property. It should be subject to the right of ownership, economic management or operational management. Property is recorded in the independent balance sheet.
- Differentiation of property of founders and legal entity. In the event of liability, the founders will not lose their personal property (except as provided by law). And legal entities are not responsible for the obligations of their founders.
- The possibility of independent participation in civil law relations. Similar activities are conducted on behalf of the organization itself. She can acquire and exercise non-property rights, as well as fulfill obligations that are permitted by applicable law.
- They have a certificate of state registration as a legal entity.
- The organization can defend its interests in a legal way, acting as a plaintiff and defendant in court.
Attributes by which legal entities are classified
To do this, use:
- Objectives of the activity. It may indicate profit or other end results not prohibited by law.
- The legal form in which the legal entity operates. An entrepreneur himself can act in his role, but in most cases it is still called the organization of people.
- The nature of the relationship between the founder and the legal entity itself.
Purpose of activity
Here, legal entities are divided into non-commercial organizations. The former include those whose goal is not to make a profit, but to achieve something. As an example, we can cite funds to combat orphans, support for sick people, and so on. Commercial organizations are those that engage in entrepreneurial activity, the main purpose of which is to make a profit.
The Civil Code of the Russian Federation does not make a big difference between these forms. So, they both can make a profit. But in the case of a commercial form, it goes into the pocket of founders and participants, while the second type of organization should spend it on statutory goals. The capabilities and rights of a legal entity depend on what it is created for.
Form of incorporation
So called the set of specific features with which legal entities objectively stand out in the system of common features. Commercial organizations can be created exclusively in this form:
- Business partnerships or companies.
- Production cooperatives.
- Municipal and state unitary enterprises.
Nonprofit organizations operate in the following forms:
- Consumer cooperative.
- Public association.
- Owner-financed institutions.
- Charity funds.
- Other forms permitted by law.
Nature of the relationship
This parameter is divided into two types:
- The founders have the right of ownership to their contributions. At the same time, the legal entity does not have this right.
- This type is the exact opposite of the following. Founders lose their ownership, and legal entities get them. Additionally, in this type there are two types of relationships:
- In return for the contribution, the founder receives certain obligations.
- The creator does not pretend to be anything.
Who falls under such conditions? For the first case, we can cite as an example municipal and state legal entities, as well as institutions, the financing of which lies entirely with their creator. The second type includes all the others.
The difference between a legal entity and an individual
Their main differences can be fit in six points:
- The nature of occurrence. An individual (i.e. a person) is born regardless of the laws of society. The only thing that affects him is nature. A legal entity can only be created in the manner prescribed by law, and its appearance without state registration is not possible.
- The carrier of properties. A man in society represents himself. But with a legal entity is not so simple. Some people believe that the founders are the bearers of its properties. Others are that of a director. According to the third, this is a kind of abstract concept that is used by the state for ease of management.
- Number of participants. An individual is always in the singular. After all, a person represents only himself. Under the legal entity most often refers to some kind of team. Also, the presence of this organization indicates that there is a certain structure. Although it should be said that there are individual legal entities. This means that it belongs to one person.
- The purpose of the creation. Legal entities arise to make a profit or solve a specific problem. While the goal of creating man, each interprets in his own way.
- Responsibility. When creating a legal entity, its participants limit their risks. Responsibility of a person comes under obligations with all property and even personal belongings.
- Legal and legal capacity. The legal entity receives them at the time of its registration. Whereas a person at birth has only legal capacity. At 14, he already has partial, and at 18 full legal capacity.
Taxation
Speaking about the fact that such a legal entity, it is difficult to circumvent the issue of taxes. The easiest way is with non-profit structures. Since they do not have entrepreneurial income, a number of taxes are not collected from them. But it is still necessary to deduct interest from the employees' salaries to the budget. But taxes of legal entities of a commercial orientation are already more diverse. In general, it all depends on what the organization is doing. So, if we have before us a trading company that imports goods from abroad, it will pay customs duty. Agricultural enterprises pay money to the state for the use of land. Metal-rolling companies pay rent for the extraction, processing and sale of minerals. And this list can be continued for a very long time.
Interaction with the law
Let's talk a little about the rights of a legal entity. They are indicated in the package of constituent documents. In addition to rights, status and responsibilities are prescribed there. Of course, everything happens within the law. It also defines the division into public and private organizations. This all affects the contents of the package of constituent documents. Registration of legal entities in the Russian Federation is carried out in the tax service. For an approximate assessment of the scale of activity of this sector, we simply call the number of actors - 3.7 million. Here are so many legal entities operating in the country!
Organizational structure and activities
Continuing to talk about what a legal entity is, let's pay attention to its important components. An important role is played by the head unit (or office). It should be located at the address indicated during registration. The main unit can act as the center of the whole organization or just be a small office where official papers will come. Everything in this case is decided by the founders or directors (if they have been delegated the appropriate authority). Then, territorially isolated branches are distinguished, which are assigned the status of a branch. Also, to carry out the necessary activities, subsidiaries can be created. This is what a legal entity organization is in practice.
Now let's pay attention to their activities. It can be aimed either at making a profit, or at achieving certain goals. The activities of a legal entity in the first case are carried out for the production of a certain product or the provision of services, with the aim of obtaining material benefits that will allow achieving the set objectives. Moreover, communication processes are important here. Non-commercial activities of a legal entity are carried out to solve certain problems. Thus, a fund to fight diseases can help low-income people so that they gain access to essential medicines. The Organization for the Protection of Animals advocates for humanity towards our smaller brothers. There are many examples in this case. And we will consider one of them right now.
Example
Consider state legal entities. What it is? Why are they created? To solve a number of problems of national importance, such entities are created. They are engaged in management in those areas where the country has a number of strategic interests. Let's look at this with the example of the Russian Federation. What is important? From the point of maintaining the working capacity of the state organism, support for the food sector is necessary, military enterprises are needed for protection, and the oil and gas industry is needed to obtain highly liquid currency. If food supply is excluded from public administration, then foreign countries can easily unbalance the internal situation by creating piece-wise crisis phenomena. Speaking about military enterprises, it should be noted that when they are transferred to private hands, there are high chances of an increase in the number of illegal weapons, which is potentially very dangerous for the current system. There is nothing to say about the oil and gas industry - this is such an important source of state revenue that there’s nothing to say.
Conclusion
So we figured out what a legal entity is, why it is necessary and what happens. If you are interested in this issue, you can make the assumption that you want to prove yourself as an active citizen of society. Well, in this case, we wish you good luck, and we hope that the information provided here about what a legal entity is will help along this difficult path.