But in the real world, many businesses simply form and entity and begin operations and only enough is contributed to the business to ensure that checks do not bounce.

FORBES: Khashoggi: Margin Scheme Leads Personal Liability For True Beneficial Owner Under Alter Ego Theory; Undercapitalization and Domination

Another possible, though less likely, outcome is that Vodafone and Verizon could merge to form a single entity.

ENGADGET: Bloomberg: Verizon seeking to end Vodafone partnership through merger or buyout

Many entrepreneurs opt to form a business entity through other means, such as having their accountant and attorney help them.

FORBES: Advice to Startup Entrepreneurs: Do Your Homework

The two banks will consolidate their retail banking in Switzerland and form a merged entity, Warburg Dillon Read, to take on the Americans in investment banking.

ECONOMIST: BRITAIN SPECIAL: GLOBAL INVESTMENT BANKS: Fools’ gold | The

It has searched for alternative methods of growth and has acquired European electronic exchange Euronext in 2006 to form a combined entity which is now known as NYSE Euronext.

FORBES: Fatter Margins For NYSE Euronext From Deutsche Boerse Merger

To avoid running afoul of regulations that prohibit businesses from employing physicians, some health care start-ups spend time and money crafting a solution in the form of a doctor-owned entity which serves as a billing conduit to the start-up.

FORBES: Scrap Outdated Regulations to Unleash Real Innovation In Health Care

That didn't win through as a separate entity, though it's still implicitly alive in the form of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

BBC: The joylessness of shopping

FRS5, which requires the substance of an entity's transactions to be reported in its financial statements, regardless of legal form.

ECONOMIST: Company accounts

No entity is exempt and, in our world, just about everyone can be engaged in some form of fraudulent activity and theft, be it office supplies, time, gasoline, telephone calls, cash, assets, food, liquor, pictures hanging on the wall, bed sheets, dishes, narcotics, credit cards, checks, information, and whatever else is available for the taking or diversion.

FORBES: How Do You Spot The Thief Inside Your Company?

Facebook, the corporate entity, meanwhile, will not have to pay taxes on the amount of compensation Zuckerberg makes in the form of his options.

FORBES: Sen. Carl Levin's Strange Tax Attack On Facebook

This has taken the most prominent form in an initiative that was begun, I think, back in 1999, by an entity many of us haven't heard of, called the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Frank Gaffney: Jihad by other means