Is it legal to create a corporation for no reason? Suppose a group of friends randomly decide to start a corporation and do nothing but have meetings and file paperwork, because they enjoy meetings and paperwork. While this isn't something most people would want to do &quot;just for fun&quot;, is it legal?
A business must be incorporated for a legal purpose (reason), and that reason must be stated when the business is registered; but that purpose can be to be incorporated and exist as a business. It's common for businesses to be registered &quot;for the purpose of conducting lawful business.&quot;
On what grounds would you sue? Contract Well, I think that you would struggle to find the necessary elements (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) In particular, you would struggle to prove that there was intention to create legal relations on their part and possibly on yours. Are you able to identify in your "back &amp; forth" a clear, unequivocal offer and acceptance? Without knowing the details of the "back &amp; forth": I was hoping that someone at $organization might be willing to write an article explaining what you do, the history of the organization and how it works appears on the face of it to be a request for a gift; not an offer to treat. Promissory Estoppel If you don't have a contract then it is possible (IMO unlikely) that they induced you by your actions to commit resources (your time in writing) in anticipation of a reward (them publishing what you wrote). To be estopped they would have to have known that you were writing the article in the expectation that it would have your organisation's name in it, that they did not intend for that to happen and that they allowed you to invest those resources notwithstanding. If you can prove all of that then you can require them to do what they promised. The big difficulty I see in this is did you tell them that a) you were writing the article, b) it would have your name in it and c) you expected it to be published in that form. Copyright If they publish the work or a derivative work without your permission you can sue for breach of copyright. As it stands, they probably have an implied licence to publish and you would need to explicitly revoke that. Options There are two reasons to go to court: Money Principle If you are going to court for money then this is at best a risky investment and at worst a gamble: balance your risk and reward carefully. If you are going to court for a principle then I simultaneously admire your principles and think you're an idiot. Make a deal Explain that the reason that you wrote the article was a) to support their fine publication and the fantastic work it does (even if you don't) and b) to garner good publicity for your organisation. You understand and admire their strong editorial stance (especially if you don't) but the article involved a considerable amount of work and could they see their way clear to give you a significant discount (~80%) on a full page ad facing the article.
Short Answer No. An AI cannot own a company. Artificial intelligences are not legal persons. The law recognizes human beings and legally recognized entities as persons. It does not recognize AIs or for that matter non-human species as persons except in a handful of jurisdictions that recognize, for example, some select rivers as legal persons (e.g. New Zealand). Approximate Alternatives Something close would be possible, however. It is possible to establish a non-profit corporation without owners, or to establish a non-profit entity that is not a corporation (often called a &quot;foundation&quot;) that has no owners. These entities are required to have humans who serve on a board of directors. But, the nonprofit entity or foundation could have bylaws that delegate decision making responsibility on all or many matters to an AI, in much the way that decision making responsibility of all or many matters might be delegated to the CEO of a nonprofit corporation. While the AI can't own anything and indeed, to the contrary, would be owned by the entity, the AI's actions could cause the entity to earn income, to acquire and dispose of property, and to participate in lawsuits. And, while most non-profit entities and foundations are designed to have charitable purposes in order to garner tax benefits, there are many kinds of non-profits that exist for non-charitable purposes (e.g. country clubs, stock exchanges, HOAs and political organizations). If an AI was vested with management of most key parts of an entity's operations, that entity had no owners, and its board of directors was relatively docile, this would come reasonably close, in practice, to what an AI owned entity would look like. How The Law Could Be Changed Indeed, one plausible form of organization for the AI would be as a political organization which could be devoted to the purpose of reforming the law to give AIs personhood status. If one U.S. state did so, for example, this would allow all AIs to use that state's law to form entities owned by them, that could operate in any U.S. state, since geographic constraints do not really apply to AIs. And, it doesn't take that much money to lobby a single state to adopt a law if there is no obvious constituency to oppose the adoption of the law. Analogous Historical Precedents There are deep historical precedents for allowing people who were not legally allowed to own property to manage businesses. In the Roman Empire, the practice of having a slave operate a business or venture or transaction as an agent of the slave's owner was well recognized. This was also true, to a much narrower extent and much less frequently, under American chattel slavery. In the medieval and early modern era in Europe and in the post-colonial regimes in the Americas, it was not uncommon in jurisdictions that did nt otherwise recognize the right of a married woman to own property or to be recognized as a legal person in a court to be allowed to manage her husband's affairs on his behalf in his absence as his delegate agent to do so (often for long periods of time, for example, when the husband was away at war, and for entire fiefdoms for which the aristocratic husband was the lord). European law also recognized the concept that when a royal or noble title was inherited by an oldest son due to the death of his father, when the son was just a child, that the mother could serve a regent for the son and manage the affairs of the jurisdiction associated with the son's title, even though the mother was not legally permitted to hold that title in her own right.
Get a corporate lawyer. The standard practice is to create two LLCs (usually in Delaware, which offers some of the best protections): A holding company owned by the individuals, and an operating company, owned by the holding company. If done correctly (which is why you need a lawyer to review the creation and operating agreements) it is nearly impossible for an adversary to follow the operating company back to the individuals without a compelling legal reason ordered by a court.
It may be discrimination, but it is not discrimination based upon any reason that the company is prohibited from engaging in. This conduct is legal in pretty much all U.S. jurisdictions.
You are mistaken: The U.S. governments (both federal, and states that impose income tax) assert a right to tax both: Income earned within their jurisdiction (e.g., "on their soil"), and Income earned by citizens (or residents, in the case of states). So it is perfectly legal for a resident U.S. citizen to operate a foreign business entity, earn profit, pay himself, and even bank the money overseas. However, a resident in such a situation would be in violation of tax law if he failed to report his interest in the foreign entity and his earnings, as prescribed by the IRS, on his tax filings.
You don’t need a company to run a business As an individual (sole-trader) you can operate a business, hire employees and contractors and do everything else a business does. The purpose of a company is to separate and protect your personal assets from your business assets. As a sole-trader you are personally responsible for all the liabilities of the business - if it goes bust, you go bust. If the business is operated by a company, then, providing you and the company follow the law, your personal assets are not at risk if the company becomes insolvent.
It is not legal in the case of a company. They must also accept communications by post. In the UK, &quot;a company must at all times have a registered office to which all communications and notices may be addressed.&quot; (s 86, Companies Act 2006). It must display the address of its registered office on its website, business letters, and order forms (r 25, Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015). It must also disclose the address to you if you ask for it in writing (r 27). A failure to do either of these is a criminal offence (r 28). As a practical matter you can also look up the address yourself on the Companies House register if you know the name or registered number of the company. The company must provide you with its registered name on all forms of business correspondence (r 24) (this is a wider definition than that for disclosure of its registered office address). A company cannot rely on the fact that the registered office address it has given to Companies House is out of date. It must continue to accept communications at any address on the register for 14 days after it notifies Companies House of any change. (s 87, Companies Act 2006).