Video: Joint Ventures

In this lesson, Nick Palazzolo, CPA, breaks down the concept of a joint venture, especially in how it differs from a general partnership. He clarifies that, unlike the ongoing nature of general partnerships, a joint venture is a temporary collaboration aimed at a specific goal or project. Nick illustrates the unique characteristics of joint ventures, such as maintenance of separate identities and limited liability, while outlining how they are still treated as partnerships in many legal aspects, particularly for tax purposes. Bringing the concept to life with real-world examples, he digs into the successful Lifton Tea Partnership formed between PepsiCo and Unilever, offering a practical framework for understanding how joint ventures operate in the real business world. Nick encourages keeping these examples in mind for an easier grasp of the topic as it relates to business law and agency law within the realm of the CPA exam content.

"Examprep.ai helped me pass all 4 CPA exams on the first try. I highly recommend. I especially like the feedback and ratings the software provides so I know where to focus my time."

Daniel H., CPA

"I can't recommend ExamPrep.ai enough. Nick's lessons turned concepts I struggled with into strengths. I was able to pass FAR right before other exams expired!"

Andrew K, CPA

"I just want to say thank you for the great lesson videos. I couldn't stay awake through lectures of another course. After watching all your FAR lessons I was finally able to pass!"

Alyssa M., CPA Candidate

Video Transcript

Instructor: Nick Palazzolo

Nick Palazzolo is head instructor of ExamPrep.ai CPA Review. Nick's teaching style is engaging & upbeat, combining practical Big 4 tax & assurance expertise with years of 1-on-1 coaching. His lessons are concise and emphasize what you need to know to pass. Whether you're a recent grad or working full-time, we’re confident you can conquer your CPA exams with Nick’s review.

Cite this lesson

Link to this page

[[ citeExample ]]

Copy to clipboard

Copy URL to clipboard

Copy HTML to clipboard

Now we're moving on to less of an actual business type of entity, more so a situation we're going to see, and this is going to be a joint venture. Joint venture. You may have already known what this is before entering into our wonderful exam, or maybe you're completely new. Either way, we'll catch up to speed what you need to know specifically for the exam. Now let's just start off. General partnership. We want to compare that to a joint venture, so we're reintroducing ourselves. A general partnership, that's a business structure where two or more individuals agree to share ownership, management responsibilities, profits or losses of a business, all that good stuff. Each partner contributes assets, skills, or labor, or accommodation of all of those, and they have unlimited liability for the debts and obligations of the partnership, so reminding ourselves what that is as we compare it to a joint venture. A joint venture, on the other hand, it's a temporary collaboration, whereas general partnerships, we said they can pretty much go on forever. There will be events that ensure that you have to essentially re-up the partnership, or it may just cease to exist. However, joint ventures, by nature, are temporary, so it's a temporary collaboration between two or more parties. Now these could be individuals, businesses, or a combination of this. It doesn't have to be two or more individuals like a general partnership is to achieve a specific goal or complete a project. So again, this is not an entity. It could be an entity, that is totally fair. Two entities could come together for a joint venture, and then they create a separate third entity for the specific purpose of this, and we'll see an example down below. In a joint venture,

Unlock the full video transcript and subtitles support with a free account!

Get more from this lesson

Create an account 7-day free trial. No credit card required.

Formation and liquidation of business entities

Module: 3 Concepts, 39 Videos

Business Structures Overview

2:10

Introduction to Business Structures

12:05

Entities Formed Without Filing

6:23

Sole Proprietorship Business Structure