Looking for positives, but especially negatives. What are the pitfalls of not granting corporations the same rights as people/citizens?
Looking for positives, but especially negatives. What are the pitfalls of not granting corporations the same rights as people/citizens?
It could exist as an automatic thing, but you need to carefully define in what situations it exists. If anything goes someone will do something absurd - my company is a hitman for so you can’t try me for murder only my company which only has the pistol for assets. Now take the above but for something that is borderline - where are the borders. Should my car automatically be owned by a LLC (this is how most small airplanes are - you often don’t sell the airplane you sell the company that has that airplane as an asset). There are many many situations in life where a LLC might be useful, most of us don’t bother most of the time and are just fine, but maybe we should anyway?
However there is a different consideration: in pretty much all cases where someone wants a LLC the will need some paper anyway because they want different taxes and so you may as well require paperwork for all cases even those few where taxes won’t be a factor.
I get the paperwork for taxes, just not why an individual should be held as more responsible for the same actions as a company if they didn’t fill out paperwork to be a company. Why are companies special?
The idea behind it is that everyone engages with the company, not an individual. You visit Sam’s widgets, and buy a widget from Sam. A week later, Sam sells the business to Joe and disappears. It’s now Joe’s widgets, with all the same stuff and people (aside from Sam). Your widget breaks under warranty. Is Joe obligated to fix it?
You can see the obvious problems if you say no. Coincidentally, this is the case with all the AliExpress crap on Amazon.
But if Sam isn’t required for business continuity, it can build consumer trust. Even if Sam leaves, customers know they will be taken care of. They can buy with confidence that someone at Sam’s Widgets will keep supplying their widget needs.
Yes, it’s possible for a corporation to escape liabilities. But it’s the case for real people, too. People declare bankruptcy all the time, although there are certain debts that cannot be erased. These often don’t apply to corporations.
Have you ever worked at a place and disagreed with a decision made by the higher ups? Imagine if you were on the hook for every single widget you produced, or claim you processed, or whatever else