What is fair pay for multiple shareholder employees

We are looking for advice on a fair way to pay multiple shareholder (SH) owner / employees for a small S Corp. that does around $325K per year.

Company was started 20 years ago with two partners 50/50. One 50% partner became a silent partner and gave 10% to his son making him a 40% SH. An agreement was made that salaries would still be paid 50/50 and that the 40% SH would pay the salary of his son who now owned 10% and he would keep the rest. So if he paid his son $4000 a month and made $5000 he would keep the other $1000 for himself.

The 50% and 10% SH's have been actively running the business for many years. The 40% SH who has been a silent partner now wants to join in again and be an active full time employee.

The 40% SH is proposing that since all three will be full time employees that all three should have the same salary so effectively splitting the profits three ways. Any salary paid will be whatever the profit is so the issue is, is this fair? Should the 50% SH split his compensation equally with the 40% and 10% SH because all three would be working Full time?

Any advice anyone could give us would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you,