Research No3 - Employer's/ Supplier's Status - Some Looks....?

A prospective employer is a "legal person" with a status having characteristics, powers, duties etc which are prescribed or embedded in law.  In many instances you will take status for granted or perhaps not think about it.  For instance, you may be applying for interview to a "individual", "an estate agent", "a hotel","a company", "a charity", "the council", etc.

This post is a brief look at status in the sense of legal persona. You employer is likely to be one of the following:

• a "sole trader", that is an individual who runs his or her own business;
• a "partnership", for example, group of individuals who run a businesss together;
• a "company", that is an organisation owned by the shareholders and run by appointed directors; 
• a "trust", being an entity set up and run by "trustees"in accord with its governing documents, eg a statute (National Trust) or trust deed.

Different prospective employers will, of course be run in accord with their status; the status determines such matters as: 

1. the aims and objectives underpinning the legal person;
2. the owner of the organisation and the extent of the owner's rights and obligations;
3. the "destination" of the assets of the organisation if it is "folded up" or "dies"; 
4. whether it is a "not-for-profit" enterprise or not; 
5. the kinds of and limitations on the organisation's activities;
6. the nature and extent of the formal statutory duties and obligations of an organisation's directors/trustees, officers, and so on, including you if appointed; 
7. the impact of different types of legislation on day to day operations, that is in terms of exemptions, reliefs and concessions, eg a registered charity is not usually required to pay income taxation or capital gains taxation;
8. the range, nature and severity of the different taxes, if any, which will be imposed;