formed or doing business within their borders designate and maintain a "registered agent". This person may be known as the "resident agent" or "statutory agent", depending on the laws of the individual jurisdiction in which the business entity is registered. The purpose of a registered agent is to provide a legal address (not a P.O. Box) within that jurisdiction where there are persons available during normal business hours to facilitate legal service of process being served in the event of a legal action or lawsuit. Generally, the registered agent is also the person to whom the state government sends all official documents required each year for tax and legal purposes, such as franchise tax notices and annual report forms. It is the registered agent's job to forward these suit documents and notices to the entity itself. Registered agents generally will also notify business entities if their state government filing status is in "good standing" or not. The reason that these notifications are a desired function of a registered agent is that it is difficult for a business entity to keep track of legislative changes and report due dates for multiple jurisdictions given the disparate laws of different states. The failure to maintain a registered agent may cause a jurisdiction to revoke a business's corporate or LLC legal status, imposition of penalty fees on the entity, or both. Who may serve as a registered agent Different states have different requirements for registered agents. Typically, the agent must be a natural person resident of the state in question or, in states that allow entities to serve as registered agents, an entity having a business office within the state and authorized to do business in the state. In some states a business entity is legally allowed to act as its own registered agent, if at least one of its officers is a resident of the state, but other jurisdictions may require that a business entity designate a third party as its registered agent. Because most states permit one business entity to serve as a registered agent for others, some businesses exist to serve that exact function, charging a fee to act as the registered agent for hundreds or thousands of businesses in a given state. Model Registered Agents Act The Model Registered Agents Act (MoRAA) is an effort spearheaded by the American Bar Association Business Law Section and the International Association of Commercial