Difference between natural person and moral person
From a legal point of view, when a person or a group of people decide to start a business or carry out any business activity, it is important to know the tax obligations that they must comply with as well as the legal rules and regulations associated with such activity.
In this sense, the most important aspects of this type of association must be known in order to keep all the required documentation up to date and in order. We then speak of a natural person and a legal person, depending on the type of association that you want to form. Both concepts will be defined in this article in order to delimit the differences that arise between them.
Physical person
Legally speaking, a natural person is defined as that human person, of real and physical existence, who can acquire rights and incur obligations. Natural persons are individualized and identified by their name and identity number, which may vary from identity document, social security number or tax information registration from one country to another and may incur tax obligations after having reached the majority of age.
In the same way, natural persons may have a marital status (single, married, widowed, divorced, among others), which will sometimes define the type of benefits or obligations to be fulfilled. This type of person, in turn, can have more than one nationality once certain legal requirements have been met in another country, either by affiliation or by residence.
Likewise, a natural person from the fiscal point of view must have a domicile in which to establish himself, which will be his exact home address for legal purposes of location.
Moral person
Moral person is defined as the set of individuals who come together to form a kind of legal association of different kinds, be it Civil Association (AC), Limited Company (CA), Limited Liability Partners (SRL), Corporations (SA ), Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and Cooperative Societies (SC) among others.
Moral persons are distinguished by a social reason, that is, by the type of association they carry out, such as those mentioned above. Next, the law grants them the legal capacity to have rights and obligations, despite not having a physical body like the natural person, they have the capacity to exercise rights and contract obligations from their creation, although these are limited according to the purpose of the type. of association.
In the same way, they cannot have a civil status, since this is a condition of the natural person nor can they have more than one nationality, because they have their domicile in the territory in which they were created and even when can create branches outside of it, they must adhere to the laws and regulations of the other country.
As can be seen, there are important differences from the tax point of view between individuals and legal entities, which are broken down in the following table:
| Physical person | Moral person |
| It is one person. | It is a group of people associated |
| You identify yourself with your name and personal identification number. | It is identified by a name or business name according to the type of association. |
| He has a marital status. | He has no marital status. |
| You contract tax rights and obligations when you reach the age of majority. | Contracts tax rights and obligations since its creation. |
| You can have more than one nationality by meeting certain legal requirements. | You cannot have another nationality, since it belongs to the territory where it was created. |