What to Think about When You Begin Writing a Shareholder Agreement. Name Your Shareholders. Specify the Responsibilities of Shareholders. The Voting Rights of Your Shareholders. Decisions Your Corporation Might Face. Changing the Original Shareholder Agreement. Determine How Stock can be Sold or Transferred.
Drafting shareholder agreements without expert advice could put you at risk of including provisions which may be deemed by a court as invalid.
No notarization or filing of a shareholders' agreement is required.
Qualifying for S Corporation status Be a domestic corporation or an LLC. Have only allowable shareholders or members. Have no more than 100 shareholders. Have only one class of stock. Not be an ineligible corporation (i.e. certain financial institutions, insurance companies, and domestic international sales corporations)
Most S corporations with multiple shareholders should have a written shareholders' agreement in effect for a simple reason.
An S Corporation operating agreement is a critical document outlining the rights, responsibilities, and expectations of shareholders, directors, and officers.
The owners (the shareholders) have the same protection from liability as shareholders of a C corporation. An S corporation shareholder's personal assets, such as personal bank accounts, cannot be seized to satisfy business liabilities.
Shareholder restrictions: S corps are restricted to no more than 100 shareholders, and shareholders must be US citizens/residents.
Ownership: S corporations cannot be owned by C corporations, other S corporations (with some exceptions), LLCs, partnerships or many trusts. Stock: S corporations can have only one class of stock (disregarding voting rights), while C corporations can have multiple classes.
Similarly, corporations (S corps and C corps) are not legally required by any state to have an operating agreement. Still, experts advise owners of these businesses to create and execute their version of an operating agreement, called bylaws.