Depreciating aircraft parts, dealing with taxes, etc.

On Thu, 10 May 2007 18:33:24 -0600, Newps wrote:

A corporation with the aircraft as the only asset and only one officer,
the owner of the plane.

In my particular case, I'm speaking of a corporation owned by 45 members
which owns four aircraft. But I'm guessing that the difference between
this and other organizations is more of scale than anything else.

Does single owner/single aircraft reduce the protection of the corporate
veil? Is that very different from two owners, or twenty?

- Andrew

On Thu, 10 May 2007 21:50:58 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote:


Does single owner/single aircraft reduce the protection of the corporate
veil? Is that very different from two owners, or twenty?

If you have a partner who is flying the plane when he does something
stupid to crash it you are protected from personal liability unless it
can be shown that you had reason to believe he would do something
stupid. The corporation is toast as is the partner who was flying. If
you are a single owner the corporation offers no protection.

Andrew Gideon wrote:


Does single owner/single aircraft reduce the protection of the corporate
veil?



It eliminates it. You cannot get out of personal liability with a scam,
which is basically what a one owner/single aircraft is. It would take
an average lawyer no time at all to get pierce this. If it were really
an effective protection device how come you don't have one for your
house or your cars?

Newps wrote:


Andrew Gideon wrote:

Most owners, I assume, have corporations which do the actual owning and
which provide a liability firewall.


Most owners do not as this provides no protection at all.

I seem to have been confused earlier. Is this for personal ownership
or are you operating a business here?

A corporation does little to help a single owner protect himself
from liability. Further all the tax stuff is void if you're not
operating it as a business (regardless of how the ownership is
held).

Andrew Gideon wrote:
Most owners, I assume, have corporations which do the actual owning and
which provide a liability firewall. But how are taxes managed?

I just used the regular depreciation schedules. At the time you
actually dispose of the item, if there is any value above what
it's been depreciated to, then you have to recapture it. If it's
worth less than the depreciation taken, you just take that as a loss.