C-Corporation

What Is a C Corporation?

A C corporation (or C-corp) is a legal structure for a corporation in which the owners, or shareholders, are taxed separately from the entity. C corporations, the most prevalent of corporations, are also subject to corporate income taxation. The taxing of profits from the business is at both corporate and personal levels, creating a double taxation situation.

C-corps can be compared with S corporations and limited liability companies (LLCs), which also separate a company’s assets from its owners, but with different legal structures and tax treatment.  A newer type of organization is the B-corporation (or benefit corporation), which is a for-profit firm but different from C-corps in purpose, accountability, and transparency, but aren’t different in how they’re taxed.