Transition Plan for Founders of Small Business

[Christine Roberts]

Small professional corporation wants to transition founding partners from FT employee/owners to consultants, with phased transition of stock ownership to younger shareholders.

As consultants the founders would work on premises and have W-2 compensation & benefits, including health coverage, life insurance and disability insurance, qualified plan participation, expense reimbursements, bonuses, and a bonus representing their share of the return on capital investments in the firm.

Looking for other examples of this type of transition.

[GBurns]

I was hoping that someone who had done something even remotely close to this would have replied, but I guess they had as many questions as I have.

If the "founders" are going to become consultants, What does that change? They will still be shareholders. A W2 or a title will not change that.

A bonus purporting to be a return on capital investment is still going to be a distribution of dividends regardless of what you want to call it or try to recharacterize it as.

It seems that you are trying to complicate a straight forward sale or transfer of shares which is an everyday transaction that needs no frills.