b'7. Choose Your Corporate StructureCOMMON ELEMENTS OF ALL LEGAL ENTITIESLaw. Every state has a limited liability company act, a limited partner-ship act, and a corporations act. Several states have adopted uniform acts that prescribe the rules related to formation, operation and maintenance of legal entities. When forming a company, you must choose the state where the company will be formed. If the company will operate in mul-tiple states, you may have to register it as a foreign entity in states other than the one in which it was formed. It is important that you make this choice with appropriate legal and tax advice or you could pay thousands of dollars in unnecessary taxes or filing and maintenance costs over the life of your company. Formation. To initiate formation of a company, an organizer will file the appropriate document and pay a fee to the applicable state depart-ment. The organizer may be one of the founders of the company, an at-torney, or other agent who forms the company on behalf of its founders. The corporation is duly formed and can begin operations once the state file-stamps and issues the formation documents, and publishes them to the states business registry, which may be available to the general public for online searches. Formation generally requires submittal of a form and a fee to the state. Annual dues must also be paid to the state to maintain your company. Registered Agent. To form a company, you must appoint a registered agent in the state where the company is formed. The registered agents role is to accept service of process for a lawsuit filed against the company and to receive other official documents from the state. This is a condition of forming a company in a state other than where the founders reside. By forcing you to maintain a registered agent in their state, the formation state establishes jurisdiction over your company so it can initiate a regu-latory enforcement action against you, regardless of where you live.While you can act as your own registered agent for a company formed in your home state, you may not want to take on that role as some states require you to serve in your personal name and if you dont have a bona fide business address, you may have to list your personal residence on the formation documents, making your name and home address part of the permanent business record and visible to the public. If your company is in 73'