Entity Trading Account: Meaning, Benefits, Example

What Is an Entity Trading Account?

An entity trading account is a dedicated account type belonging to a legal entity, such as a corporation or limited partnership. Entity trading accounts have certain advantages over individual trading accounts, such as tax deductions and certainty in tax law.

Understanding Entity Trading Account

An entity trading account requires one or more people with authority to trade in the account. They should be competent and honest traders in order to avoid losses in the account arising from poor trading decisions or unscrupulous behavior.

Institutional investors set up formal business entities to conduct their operations. For select individuals, particularly day traders or other active traders who wish to make a living from trading securities, it makes economic sense to establish a separate entity, rather than use individual investment accounts. Avoiding taxes is a principal motivation.

The proliferation of online and discount brokerages has played a significant role in elevating some investors into pseudo-professional investors. As such, the demand for business and tax planning around the migration from individual brokerage accounts to the incorporation of business entities for investment purposes has grown as well.

Benefits of Trading Through Business Entities

While technical in nature, the benefits of trading through a business entity extend beyond tax advantages. These benefits include paying salaries in connection with retirement plan contributions, greater flexibility in accessing certain asset classes, and establishing a performance record. This last benefit is significant for individuals who wish to capitalize on their investment prowess or methodology by creating an investment fund to which other investors can contribute. An example of this would include establishing a hedge fund or separately managed fund under a registered investment advisor.

Moving individual investment accounts to a business account also has the advantage of allowing for the tax deduction of expenses related to trading activities, such as Bloomberg subscriptions or specialized equipment, for example.

By conducting investment activities through an entity, individuals may gain access to certain other investment providers and potential counterparties. A hedge fund, for instance, may not choose not to do business with an individual through their vanilla brokerage account but may consider engaging in transactions with a serious individual investor who manages their assets with an entity-linked trading account.

A person or group of persons that starts a legal trading business and opens an entity trading account may also change their accounting methods or legal structure by dissolving and re-forming the business. As long as an individual trader remains an individual trader, they don't have this flexibility.

Although it is more complicated, multiple entities and entity accounts may be set up to further benefit the trader. This allows each entity to maximize its own tax efficiency as well as that of all the entities as a whole. Such structures should be discussed with a qualified accountant.

Entity trading accounts typically come with all the functions of an individual trading account and often have no initial deposit requirements (this may vary by broker). These accounts can trade in cash and on margin, and can access markets like futures, options, forex (FX), and all other markets that are accessible through the broker.

Entity Trading Account Example

Sara has been successfully day trading for more than a year, pulling in regular monthly income. She talks with an accountant and decides that she could be more efficient with her taxes and costs by setting up a corporation and then trading within that legal structure. She sets up Sara Trading Inc., and then opens an entity trading account for that corporation, with herself as the only authorized trader on the account.

She trades as she did before, but now all the transactions—and profits and losses—are occurring within the entity trading account and corporation instead of her individual accounts. The corporation has more discretion and leeway on deductions and how to allocate pretax dollars in order to minimize taxes. With the help of her accountant, Sara is able to reduce the taxes she pays on her trading profits.