General Incorporated
A General Incorporated, 一般社団法人 (一般 / いっぱん : general; 社団 / しゃだん : association; 法人 / ほうじん: incorporated)
Some knowledge about GI's:
Disclaimer: This needs to be checked by a lawyer and may be overly simplified.
For tax purposes GI's have to keep two books for "profit" income and "non-profit" income which is differently taxed. The categorization of which can be tricky at times.
GI's are not allowed to distribute profits to the directors. Profits are to be used for investments into the GI's purpose.
The GI's purpose is registered at the government office.
The directors decide how funds are used and what projects to care about at a directors meeting 理事会.
Directors need to be registered at the government office (which costs money).
Directors of the GI consist of a "representative director" 代表理事 an auditor and "regular" directors 理事. It is a good idea to have an unequal number of voting directors to not have tie votes.
As it is not a LLC, directors are personally liable!
GI's, like NPO's can receive donations (which are differently taxed) because they need to reinvest their profits.
If a GI is managed in a good way (i.e. that the non-profit income exceeds the for-profit income over the period of 3 years) it can apply to become a Governmental supported Incorporated at which time the tax benefits increase.