When a natural person decides to operate a business and be fully responsible for it, it is called a sole proprietorship. This legal form has multiple advantages. For example, the fact that its creation does not require any particular formality. But what is it really about? Focus on this particularly used legal form.
While setting up a sole proprietorship is fairly easy in itself, the business name must include at least the entrepreneur’s last name. Then, beyond a capital threshold, registration in the trade register will be compulsory as well as the keeping of accounts. Generally, this legal form is chosen when the owner of the business wishes to be the sole decision maker. This means that he will be the only one to define his trade policy, but also that he is committed to taking any risks. He will answer for these as well as debts on his private fortune. Individual reasons, in general, prevalent in the service and craft sectors. It often happens that a self-employed person embarks on a project on his own and later changes it to a capital company.
This is not an independent tax subject. The cantons, the confederation and the municipalities collect their taxes directly from the entrepreneur. To calculate these, it is necessary to be based on the commercial fortune, but also private of the entrepreneur. When the income results from a self-employed activity, it is used as a basis for setting the contributions which the latter cannot avoid, namely AVS, APG, AI … Wealth taxes are additional taxes to income taxes. To estimate it, it will be necessary to carry out a calculation according to the market value of the heritage elements. However, it will always be necessary to differentiate between the capital profit on personal fortune and that on commercial fortune. Indeed, the latter is taxable, unlike the first. On the other hand, it is impossible to deduct depreciation from private wealth.
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