Shareholders, Partners and/or LLC members of any closely-held or family-held company should check the buy-sell formula contained in their Shareholder Agreement (sometimes called a Buy-Sell Agreement), Partnership Agreement or Operating Agreement to make sure that the formula still works for all of the owners following last month's release by the IRS of proposed regulations under Code §2704.

By now, most owners of interests in family-controlled businesses have heard of or read about the regulations proposed by the IRS in early August specifically designed to reduce, if not completely eliminate, minority interest and lack of marketability discounts when a single family controls 51% or more of the ownership of the company. While there have been numerous articles and blogs explaining the proposed changes on how interests in a family-controlled business must be valued once these regulations are finalized, few of those articles have provided much detail on when, where or how closely-held business owners should start planning with respect to these proposed rules and what documents need to be reviewed.