what is a non assessable stock 
a non assessable stock is a class of stock in which the issuing company is not allowed to impose levies on its shareholders for additional funds in order to make further investments the maximum liability the purchaser of the stock assumes is equal to the initial purchase price of the shares stocks issued by u s companies and traded on u s exchanges and almost all other exchanges are generally non assessable understanding non assessable stocka non assessable stock is the opposite of an assessable stocks a now defunct type of primary offering assessable stock was the primary type of equity issued in the late 1800s assessable stock was usually sold at a discount and allowed the issuer to gather additional funds from investors after their initial purchase of the stock for example a share of stock with a face value of 20 might be sold for 5 at some point the issuer would serve the investors with an assessment for more funds up to the entire discounted amount in this example 15 if an investor refused to pay the stock returned to the issuing company not surprisingly assessable stock proved to be unpopular most companies switched over to issuing non assessable stock in the early 1900s and the last assessable shares were sold in the 1930s although equity was no longer sold at a discount compared to its share price investors were more confident about buying non assessable stocks because they no longer had to worry about the possibility that the issuer would force them to invest more money in the stock after the initial transaction for any equity offering that is registered with the securities and exchange commission sec it is standard to include the opinion of a law firm that states the shares are duly authorized validly issued fully paid and non assessable the largest investment the purchaser of a non assessable stock has to make is the initial purchase price of the shares the investor may lose the invested amount if the stock price goes to zero however the investor will never be required by the issuing company to make additional investments as a condition of their stock ownership 