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Originally posted by AchtungBaby80 At the risk of sounding like a dumb-arse, what does "incorporated" imply in terms of Greek groups? I've always wondered about this.
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Originally posted by AGDee
Achtung: It makes them a business, essentially.
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Not quite. Not all corporations are businesses and not all businesses are corporations. The Interpreter is much more on target by saying "It means that the organization is a 'corporation' or legal entity formed and authorized according to the laws of a state (or district) to contract, conduct business, and otherwise operate as a single person."
Incorporation means that the law recognizes that the organization or group of people (a municipality is a kind of corporation, although you won't see a municipality using "Inc.") as a legal entity in its own right ("corporation" coming from the Latin
corpus or "body"), rather than simply as an association of individual people. It also typically denotes perpetual existence, regardless of changes in membership. Greatly simplified, the law treats a corporation as an "artificial person." This both enables the corporation to conduct business in its own stead and insulates shareholders or members of the corporation from any personal liability as a result of the corporation's corporate liability.