What is a shareholders’ agreement?

Some common situations that most shareholder agreements try to address are: What happens if a shareholder dies or becomes disabled, or gets divorced? What happens if the shareholders aren’t getting along? What happens if a shareholder wants to sell their shares to a third party? How is the company going to distribute dividends, or make […]

Does my corporation need to have shareholder meetings?

Each year, the corporation has to have certain director meetings and shareholder meetings that follow the strict rules that are set out in the Business Corporations Act (Alberta), unless all of the directors and all of the shareholders sign written resolutions instead of having those meetings. With a small, closely-held corporation, the directors and shareholders […]

Should I incorporate federally or provincially?

Every corporation carrying on business in Alberta must be registered in Alberta, but it doesn’t need to be an Alberta company. For example, a corporation from another province that is carrying on business in Alberta can be “extra-provincially” registered to meet that requirement. This also applies to federal corporations that are carrying on business here […]

Can I do my own incorporation?

Can you do our own incorporation? Well, kind of – you can walk into a registry yourself but you still need to have a registry agent to file the Articles of Incorporation, Notice of Directors, and Notice of Address. However, the fact that the agent completes the filing does not mean that everything is correct. […]

How do I incorporate?

The first thing we do when incorporating is a “NUANS” search to make sure that the name you want  for your corporation is available. Assuming that the desired name is available, the next thing that we do is prepare and file Articles of Incorporation with Corporate Registry. The Articles specify things like the number and […]

Disadvantages of incorporating

Incorporating is not always the right answer for every business. Here are some reasons you might consider not incorporating your business: Costs. There are costs for setting up the corporation in the first place, but there are also ongoing legal and accounting fees each year. Extra admin. The corporation creates extra administrative work as it […]