Business Owners Can Inadvertently Become Personally Liable for Company Credit Cards
If you own a business through a corporation or limited liability company, you should not be personally liable for the company debts. That is one of the reasons you set up a corporation or a limited liability company in the first place. It is a different story if you sign a personal guaranty for a bank loan or other company obligation. Then you obviously become responsible for that debt.
A business owner would normally assume that he/she is not personally liable for payment of credit cards that are taken out in the name of the company. They should be a corporate (and not a personal) debt. However, the fine print on many credit card applications tries to make the owners of the business personally liable for the company credit cards. This is often hidden in the fine print of an extremely lengthy corporate credit card application. I have recently had several instances in which a major credit card company attempted to hold one of my closely held business owners personally liable for a corporate debt based on some obscure clause in a credit card application. The credit card debt of some companies can be very high, especially if a number of different employees use the corporate credit cards.
A major goal of any asset protection plan for a family business owner is to make sure the owner is not personally liable for company debts. In working toward this goal, it might be prudent to review the terms of the corporate credit card account to be sure it does not attempt to impose personal liability on the owner.
If you and your spouse (or you and anyone else) have a joint credit card account, then both of you are fully liable for all the credit card debt. Many couples open a joint account for convenience. But keep in mind that if your spouse or partner runs up a huge credit card bill, you are personally liable for all that debt. I am certainly not suggesting that a joint credit card account is always a bad idea. My wife and I have one. But the joint liability is something to be aware of when you open an account. From an asset protection standpoint, it will generally be best to avoid having two parties liable for any significant debt when you only need to have one responsible party.