Australian Indigenous enterprises can be categorised into three main categories:-
- Those owned and operated by Indigenous individuals or “nuclear” families where profits may be distributed to individuals;
- Those owned and operated by Indigenous “communities” or larger Indigenous cultural family groups that are operated for the benefit of the whole group and do not result in distributions of profit to individuals; and
- Those owned and operated by Indigenous corporate and service entities and Native Title Prescribed Bodies Corporate where profits may be distributed back to that particular corporation or service entity or its constituent corporate members such as the previously mentioned “communities”.
The second and third categories may be described as “social enterprises” or “social ventures” whether there is an intention to make a profit as a business, or whether the enterprise is a not-for-profit community service-delivery organisation.
This discussion deals with the structuring of the second and third categories. The first category is clearly a private individual business model and structuring for that category will depend on normal commercial considerations as normally applying to small business, including the application of tax.
The second and third categories are more like a combination of community organisations (that happen to run...
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