Guess what? In all these areas, your choice of how your business is organized legally makes a big difference.

This section summarizes the most important considerations you will face in choosing among the alternatives. You can get most or all of these features in most types of business organizations, but often you have to do some juggling and weigh one factor against another. You have some flexibility--it's possible to combine different features of some of the basic business structures, and your state law may give you particularly good options.

By the way, you're not stuck forever with the choice you make when you're just starting out. If the nature of your business changes, you can go from one form of organization to another, although you should check with your tax adviser on how the conversion might affect your taxes. For example, going from a corporation to a partnership can potentially have very serious tax consequences.