Concept of Legal Entity
A legal entity is an artificial person having separate legal standing in the eyes of law. A Legal entity represents a legal company for which you prepare fiscal or tax reports. A legal entity is any company or organization that has legal rights and responsibilities, including tax filings.
One of the most frequently used terms in the world of compliance and governance is that of the legal entity. But what is the meaning of a legal entity, and why is it so important for finance, compliance, legal and operational professional?
As explained before, A business is entitled enter into commercial transactions due to its charter in the legal system. Commercial groups exist through corporate law. Units in the legal structure of a group are individual companies that share common ownership and control. In a public group, a company is owned by the public through shares sold on a stock market. In a private group, they are held by a privately held holding company. In other organizations, the legal entities are partnerships, funds, or government agencies. A legally recognized entity can own and trade assets and employ people; while an entity without legal recognition cannot. When granted these privileges, legal entities are also assigned responsibilities to account for themselves to the public (statutory reporting and external reporting), comply with legislation and regulations, and pay income or transaction taxes.
What Is a Legal Entity?
A legal entity is an artificial person having separate legal standing in the eyes of law. A Legal entity represents a legal company for which you prepare fiscal or tax reports. A legal entity is any company or organization that has legal rights and responsibilities, including tax filings. It is a business that can enter into contracts either as a vendor or a supplier and can sue or be sued in a court of law. A legal entity can enter into contracts and assume the obligations of those contracts, can borrow and pay debts, can file suits and be named by other parties in suits, and can be held to account for the results of those lawsuits.
Features of Legal Entities
- Legal Entity is also known as GRE - Government Reporting Entity. Some of the attributes associated with legal entity are:
Structure
- A Legal entity is identified through the registration with Legal Authority.
- You assign tax identifiers and other Legal entity information to legal entity
- Legal Entity possesses separate existence for tax purposes. Legal Entities pay the taxes and therefore need tax registrations.
- Legal entities such as parent companies own or control subsidiaries. A large corporation can own many legal entities as its subsidiaries.
Rights & Obligations
- A legal entity has legal capacity to enter into agreements or contracts, assume obligations, incur and pay debts, sue and be sued in its own right, and to be held responsible for its actions.
- Trade between Legal Entities belonging to same corporate is intercompany and must be supported by adequate legal documentation.
- Legal Entities own the money and bank accounts
Compliance & Accounting
- Legal Entities comply with whatever needs compliance – The “Legal” in word “Legal Entity”. This includes recording of all relevant transactions and generating all supporting documents required for financial statements.
- Legal Entities file the accounts and take care of accounting. Legal Entity is the organizational unit for Financial Accounting for which a complete self-contained set of accounts needs to be drawn up for purposes of external reporting.
- Accounting Books must balance at Legal Entity level. This is an entity for which you prepare a trial balance.
Summary
Legal entities are structured in a way that allows for a greater degree of protection for strictly personal assets from lawsuits and regulatory penalties. Each type of entity provides a different set of protections and tax burdens. Legal entity codes are not standardized, despite the globalized economic world in which we live, due to the laws and regulations that govern legal entities fluctuate drastically across jurisdictions.
Related Links
You May Also Like
-
When the quantum of business is expected to be moderate and the entrepreneur desires that the risk involved in the operation be shared, he or she may prefer a partnership. A partnership comes into existence when two or more persons agree to share the profits of a business, which they run together.
-
Accrued expenses, sometimes referred to as accrued liabilities, are expenses that have been incurred but have not been recorded in the accounts. Discuss the need to record accrued liabilities and why they require an adjustment entry. Understand the treatment for these entries once the accounting period is closed and learn to differentiate when the commitments become liabilities.
-
Reversing Journals are special journals that are automatically reversed after a specified date. A reversing entry is a journal entry to “undo” an adjusting entry. When you create a reversing journal entry it nullifies the accounting impact of the original entry. Reversing entries make it easier to record subsequent transactions by eliminating the need for certain compound entries. See an example of reversing journal entry!
-
Matrix Organizational Structures
In recent times the two types of organization structures which have evolved are the matrix organization and the network organization. Rigid departmentalization is being complemented by the use of teams that cross over traditional departmental lines.
-
Horizontal or Flat Organizational Structures
Flat organizational structure is an organizational model with relatively few or no levels of middle management between the executives and the frontline employees. Its goal is to have as little hierarchy as possible between management and staff level employees. In a flat organizational structure, employees have increased involvement in the decision-making process.
-
Explore the concept of journal reversals and understand the business scenarios in which users may need to reverse the accounting entries that have been already entered into the system. Understand the common sources of errors resulting in the reversal of entries and learn how to correct them. Discuss the reversal of adjustment entries and the reversal functionalities in ERPs.
-
There are two commonly used methods of accounting - Cash Basis and the Accruals Basis. Understand the difference between accruals and reversals. Recap the earlier discussion we had on accruals and reversals and see the comparison between these two different but related accounting concepts. Understand how the action of accruing results in reversals subsequently in the accounting cycle.
-
GL - Recurring Journal Entries
A “Recurring Journal” is a journal that needs to be repeated and processed periodically. Recurring Entries are business transactions that are repeated regularly, such as fixed rent or insurance to be paid every month. Learn the various methods that can be used to generate recurring journals. See some examples and explore the generic process to create recurring journals in any automated system.
-
Trial Balance in General Ledger
One of the greatest benefits of using a double-entry accounting system is the capability to generate a trial balance. What do we mean by trial balance? As the name suggests a trial balance is a report that must have its debits equals to credits. Understand the importance of trial balance and why it is balanced. Learn how it is prepared and in which format.
-
Defining Organizational Hierarchies
A hierarchy is an ordered series of related objects. You can relate hierarchy with “pyramid” - where each step of the pyramid is subordinate to the one above it. One can use drill up or down to perform multi-dimensional analysis with a hierarchy. Multi-dimensional analysis uses dimension objects organized in a meaningful order and allows users to observe data from various viewpoints.
