United States Judicial System If and when you should so decide to start a business, first you must choose what legal form of business will be the best fit for your needs. There are three common types of ownership options to choose from, sole proprietorship, partnership, and to form a corporation. All of the three will have both advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a peek as to what each one offers. According to Karen Collins, who wrote the book Exploring Business, “A sole proprietorship is a business owned by only one person. The most common form of ownership, it accounts for more than 72 percent of all U.S. businesses.” A sole proprietorship is known to be the cheapest and easiest business to form. The advantages of having a sole proprietorship business are that you are the only owner. This means that you are the only one in control of everything. Because you are the one in control, you are also the one who gets to profit because of it. In the end you get all the income earned and any profits earned can be taxed as personal income. By doing this you are entitled not to have to pay those pesky special income taxes. The disadvantages of a sole proprietorship come down to if the business is not doing good, then in turn you are not going to do good. You are fully responsible for your business. You must rely on you and your sources for any financing, and if you die, the business will in turn die as well. Our next type of business is a partnership. A partnership is a business owned by at least two or more people. “About ten percent of U.S. businesses are partnerships.” Advantages are that it in inexpensive to start. Partners are responsible for their own income taxes on their own shares. They too o not have to pay and special taxes. People or should I say partners share decision making duties. If one partner dies, the business