Characteristics of a Business Partnership

A partnership is a voluntary association between the partners that is based on a contract. The life of a partnership is limited by agreement or by the death of incapacity of a partner. Normally, each partner can act as an agent of the others partners and commit the partnership to any contract within the apparent scope of its business. All partners in a general partnership are personally liable for all the debts of the partnership. Limited partnerships include one or more general partners plus one or more (limited) partners whose liabilities are limited to the amounts of their investments in the partnership. The risk of becoming a partner results in part from the fact that partnership characteristics include mutual agency and unlimited liability. The initial investment of partnership assets is recorded by debiting the assets contributed at the fair market value and crediting the partners’ capital accounts. A partnership’s profits or losses are allocated to the partners according to the terms of the partnership agreement. The agreement may specify that each partner will receive a given fraction, or that the allocation of profits and losses will reflect salary allowances and/or interest allowances. When salary/ or interest allowances are granted, the residual profit or loss usually is allocated equally or on a stated fractional basis.When a new partner buys a partnership interest directly from one or more of the existing partners, the amount of cash paid from one partner to another does not affect the total recorded equity of the partnership. The recorded equity of the selling partner (s) is simply transferred to the capital account of the new partner. Alternatively, a new partner may purchase an equity interest in the partnership by investing additional asset in the partnership. When this occurs, part of the new partner’s investment may be credited as a bonus to the capital accounts of the existing partners. Also, to gain the participation of the new partner, the existing partners may give the new partner a bonus whereby portions of the existing partner’s capital balances are transferred to the new partner’s capital account.When a partnership is liquidated, losses and gains from selling the partnership assets are allocated to the partners according to the partnership profit – and – loss – sharing ratio. If a partner’s capital account has a deficit balance that the partner cannot pay, the others partners must share the deficit in their relative profit and loss sharing ratio.

Stem Cell Research Legislation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Stem Cell Research Legislation - Essay Example This particular bill was vetoed by this Republican president. By 2001, President George W. Bush establishes that no stem cell research should be conducted on cells produced after August 9, 2001. This particular legislation issued by the Executive branch does not, however, indicate limitations on stem cell research conducted on cells older than August 9, 2001 or limit state-level funding for this research (Science Progress, 2009). Because of this lack of clarity in the legislation, the state of California becomes one of the first states to provide funding and establish legal allowances for this practice to continue. By 2004, the state of New Jersey becomes one of the first states to establish funding for an embryonic stem cell research center under NJ Permanent Statue, Title 26: 2Z-2. (Science Progress, 2009). In 2007, a bill is passed by Congress with a vote of 63 to 34 that expands Congressional funding of embryonic stem cell research, just short of the two-thirds majority required to protect the bill from presidential veto, however this does not occur (National Institutes of Health, 2012). This funding is approved which lays the foundation for the current policy regarding allowance of stem cell research and certain levels of federal funding toward this objective. The legislation banning or approving stem cell research maintains very different perspectives as compared to the United States that is more liberal about its imperatives and social benefits. Australia, as one example, allows this research to be undertaken, but it is highly regulated by the government. For an individual or organization to participate in this research, they must receive a license from the National Health and Medical Research Council and a secondary license must be granted for Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (Australian Stem Cell Centre, 2011). The development of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration regulates all activities associated

Mill's Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mill's Ethics - Essay Example She knew, however, just then that it was all wrong for Nick is a married man with two children and Mary is his wife of five years at that point in time. Now, since Chloe is a common link who happens to have witnessed scenarios on both sides and believes to have firsthand knowledge of the moral conflict, she eventually finds herself in a dilemma of choosing which between the two parties ought to be dealt with first. By the established norm, of course, she must opt to stop Jane from proceeding to fall into an adulterous relationship with Nick for the sake of Mary’s family, being the man’s original legal attachment. Nevertheless, in doing so, she would have caused Jane severe pain out of an emotional struggle which she is known to be weak in coping especially when she seems to have put forth in reasoning that her current state of affair was obtained with huge sacrifices that her happiness, as the chief consequence thereof, may not or should not be taken away from her at al l cost. Apparently, Chloe figures the validity of Jane’s argument upon pondering on some relevant aspects of John Stuart Mill’s ethics on utilitarianism, yet reserves an equivalent degree of doubt and philosophical analysis in favor of Mary. By the simple defining principle of utilitarianism in which the consequence is set to determine the moral value of an action or deed, Stuart Mill emerges to draw on a favored unique perspective where such theory ought to be acknowledged in the light of understanding that â€Å"actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (Mill, Ch. 2).† Equivalently, this is to mean that as long as an act or behavior causes one or many to be happy, then it is to be judged as morally right. One way of gaining discernment of this proposition is by asking ‘is happiness then a measure of justice?’ To what extent should happiness shape the view of morality a s good and scrupulous if there are people like Jane whose case is quite special? What if one’s doings of something make the individual happy yet the ones beyond his or her circle are rather annoyed or hurt as in the probable effect which Jane and Nick’s immoral quest would bear upon Mary? Surely Jane deserves to be happy and possesses the right to act accordingly but how can actions by which happiness is experienced be evaluated as truly ethically conforming if someone else out there as Mary is otherwise bound to be unhappy? Or must a specific area be defined within which only a certain set of actions with all the corresponding outcomes can be permitted to undergo moral justifications? At this stage, Chloe could be found to comprehend Jane on account of Mill’s claim that what promotes happiness at least for Jane’s part should be right but it would similarly suspend her judgment for Mary’s welfare since Jane’s consent of the illegal matter ad vances not in any way the happiness or interest of Mary. While their situation may be felt to require a greater level of moral concern, Mill’s philosophy appears to consist of a pattern or direction where the kind of ‘happiness’ being referred to equates to ‘pleasure’, and this pleasure comes in different forms, quality, and quantity. In this regard, the political economist seems to have chiefly adhered to ‘pleasure’