Taxation Of Mutual Savings Banks And Savings And Loan Associations

Excerpt from Mutual Savings Banks and Building and Loan Associations, Vol. 4: Prepared by the Staffs of the Treasury and the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation Mutual savings banks perform two basic functions: The encouragement of thrift and the provision of safe and convenient facilities to care for savings. They also have the responsibility of investing the funds left with them so as to be able to give their depositors a return on their savings. Mutual savings banks were originally organized for the principal purpose of serving factory workers and other wage earners of moderate means who, at the time these banks were started, had no other place where they could put their savings. In keeping with the objective of serving small depositors, limitations were usually placed by the States upon the deposits which any one individual could have in any one bank. Although 8 of the 17 States in which mutual savings banks are located still limit the size of the balance that may be held in any one account, these limits have been rising in recent years. Today, the limit is $7,500 in New York and $5,000 in Massachusetts. In Pennsylvania, a State which does not impose any statutory limitation on the size of deposits, individual banks may take it upon themselves to do so. For example, one of the large mutual savings banks in Philadelphia is understood to have a $30,000 limitation. Most mutual savings banks were started by groups of civic-minded citizens who put up guaranty funds which were repaid out of subsequent earnings. The organizers appointed boards of trustees to manage the affairs of the banks. The boards of trustees, which are generally self-perpetuating, direct the policies of the banks, subject to the limitations imposed upon them by the laws of the several States in which they operate. The depositors themselves have no voice either in the choice of trustees or in the management of the bank's affairs. A total of 602 organizations filed information returns with the Bureau of Internal Revenue as mutual savings banks for the year 1946. Most of these organizations were in New England and New York. There were 221 in Massachusetts, with 18.6 percent of the total receipts reported by all of those filing returns. There were 166 in New York, with 55.9 percent of the total receipts of all of those filing returns. The distribution of these returns by States is shown in table I. Since a mutual savings bank has no capital stock, everything that the bank earns is, in theory, held for the benefit of the depositors. The only means these institutions have of insuring the safety of their depositors' funds has been to build up a surplus out of earnings. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.