Holding Corporations

It is not necessarily true that a Holding Corporation is only involved in the passive business of owing other companies. Often, the holding company is the primary business, and by virtue of its business activities decides to separately incorporate individual aspects of its business. So a holding company is any corporation that owns or "holds" control of other corporations, which are called subsidiaries. According to the Internal Revenue Service, a corporation maintains control of a subsidiary when it owns at least 80 percent of its stock.