The type of entity you choose to operate your business as can have major implications for your goals and long-term success.

Business owners face numerous considerations related to tax exposure, conflicting owner interests, plans to sell or exit the business, and more.

Strategically assess your entity options and navigate the complex decision process with guidance from our professionals—so you can stay focused on the things that matter most to your business.

Assess Your Entity Options

Entity formation options for businesses include:

• C corporations. Owners taxed separately from the entity with the organization subject to corporate income taxes.
• Passthrough entities such as S corporations, partnerships, and more. Income from the entity is passed directly to owners, shareholders, or investors—who are then taxed.

Important factors to consider depending on the goals and needs of your business include:

• Cost and complexity of forming and maintaining the status of requirements under the structure
• Amount of tax liability
• Flexibility to allow owners to come and go
• Appropriate structure to have in place at an exit or ownership transfer, whether selling, passing on to the next generation, or other strategy

Examples of specific business types and industries that can benefit from in-depth scrutiny of their entity type include:

• Family-owned businesses
• Private equity-held businesses
• Technology
• Life sciences
• Real estate
• Construction

How We Help

Every business is unique and has its own nuances to consider. Collaborating closely with your leadership team, our professionals will query your personal and business goals to determine how they align with different entity options.

We’ll assess how the business plans to operate, its objectives through different life cycle stages, whether the business is self-financed or will bring additional owners, and more. Early in the life cycle you may focus on tax efficiency, while more mature businesses may look to reassess their structure should a sale or other exit option present itself.  

Educating your owners on the various incentives presented to business through specific tax provisions, we’ll help you visualize how you can take advantage of such opportunities as taking ordinary losses or excluding gains, depending on how your plans prevail.

Deeply immersed within the middle market, our professionals consistently engage with family businesses and other business types assessing entity formation challenges—making us versed in the specific needs of each entity type.

Serving thousands of clients through the middle market positions us to engage with and observe start-ups and other businesses moving throughout their life cycle as they assess potential sales and other exit strategies.

Our expansive Tax Services also provides deep resources to assess the various tax implications entity types can have on your business, helping forecast potential challenges and opportunities.

Unbound from big-firm conventions, our professionals personally engage your business while delivering the depth of resources needed as it scales up or prepares for a transition.