June 1, 1925, Peoples Finance & Securities Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; $100,000 stock preferred and 100 shares common no par value. Deal in all kinds of securities; financing operations; loaning money, real estate. Capital now $250,000 preferred and 2,500 shares no par value common. June 8, 1925, Home Mortgage Co., Green Bay, Wis.; $25,000 stock. Purchase and sale of all kinds of notes, mortgages, chattel securities, bonds, stock, and other forms of indebtedness, underwriting issues; act as securities broker; loaning money on real-estate security. June 24, 1925, Motor Finance Corporation, Merrill, Wis.; $25,000 stock, Purchase and sale of commercial paper, notes, and other securities. June 27, 1925, American Finance & Acceptance Corporation; $100,000 stock, Purchase and sale of all kinds of securities, mortgages, bonds, notes, commercial paper, trade acceptances, warehouse receipts, etc. (Acquire the business of Motor Finance Co., Milwaukee.) July 3, 1925, Ingham & Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; 1,000 shares common no par value stock. Deal in stocks, bonds, etc.; general brokerage business. June 27, 1925, First Investment Co. in Oshkosh, Oshkosh, Wis.; $100,000 stock; underwriting of bonds, notes, mortgages, stocks, and securities; loaning money, general trade and acceptance business. July 30, 1925, The Standard Corporation, Racine, Wis.; general financial, investment, real estate, and service business; $5,000 stock. August 4, 1925, Capital City Industrial Loan Co., Madison, Wis.; $100,000 stock. Underwirting securities and investments; general brokerage business. August 5, 1925, Peoples Finance & Thrift Co. of America, Los Angeles, Calif. Business in Wisconsin is to organize company to operate under Winsett System in making industrial loans; $500,000 to be used in Wisconsin. August 10, 1925, Semi & Pessin, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis.; 100 shares common, par $100. Deal in bonds, debentures, land contracts, building contracts, mortgages, and other securities; loan money. August 12, 1925, Peoples Finance & Thrift Co. of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wis.; $350,000 stock (3,500 shares par $100). Deal in bonds, stocks, mortgages; debentures, securities, and obligations of all kinds; underwriting; financing; loaning money. August 14, 1925, The Thorp Finance Corporation. Thorp, Wis.; $20,000 stock. Buying and discounting of notes (principally automobile notes). August 18, 1925, Mendota Investment Co., Madison, Wis.; $150,000 stock. Deal commercial paper, stocks, bonds, mortgages, debentures, notes, securities, and obligations of all kinds. Underwriting issues of stocks, bonds, etc. August 27, 1925, Together, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis.; $300,000 stock; loaning money on security; underwriting of bonds, notes, etc.; financing; conducting realestate business. August 31, 1925, United Security Investing Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; 1,000 shares common par $10 and 4,000 shares preferred, par $10. Deal in bonds, stocks, debentures, notes, and all other forms of securities. August 31, 1925, Conrad-Thomas Realty Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; 200 shares common no par value stock. Stocks, bonds, mortgages, securities, real estate. September 4, 1925, Wear-More Finance Co., Sheboygan, Wis.; $50,000 stock. Deal in stocks, bonds, mortgages, securities, accounts, and commercial paper. September 5, 1925, Wausau Citizens Loan & Investment Co., Wausau, Wis. General investment business; deal in all classes of investments; $100,000 stock. September 5, 1925, Superior Citizens Loan & Investment Co., Superior, W General investment business, deal in all classes of investments; $100,000 stock. September 16, 1925, Jobe-Landry Automobile Exchange, Milwaukee, Wis, $25,000 stock. Financing and discounting chattel mortgage, etc., on autos, etc., sales and service. September 23, 1925, Security Acceptance Corporation, Racine, Wis.; 2,500 shares common no par value stock. Loaning money, financing operations; purchase and sale of negotiable and transferable instruments; securities and obligations, including debentures, notes, bills of exchange, etc. September 23, 1925, West Allis Industrial Loan Co., West Allis, Wis.; $100,000 stock common and 3,000 shares par $25 preferred. Purchase and sale broker, discount, etc., stocks, bonds, debentures, obligations, negotiable, and transferable instruments, and evidences of indebtedness of all kinds; loaning money, financing. purchase and sale of mortgages and contracts. October 3, 1925, Community Loan System, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis.; 500 shares preferred par $100 and 300 shares common no par value. Stocks, bonds, securities (brokerage); loans; insurance. October 22, 1925, Wisconsin Commercial Finance Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; 1,000 shares common, par $100. Deal in all kinds of negotiable instruments and securities; financing operations; loaning money; real-estate sales. October 29, 1925, Lakeshore Mortgage & Securities Co., Milwaukee. Purchase and sale of all kinds of stocks, bonds, mortgages, debentures, securities, and obligations; agents or brokers; real estate, etc.; $25,000 stock. Sale of November 5, 1925, Ripon Finance Co., Ripon, Wis.; $25,000 stock. personal property; deal in choses in action, evidences of indebtedness, etc. November 18, 1925, Marinette Citizens Loan & Investment Co., Marinette, Wis.; $100,000 stock. Deal in securities, investments, and other obligations of all kinds. ance. November 20, 1925, Mart Realty Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; $100,000 stock. Deal in real estate securities and commercial paper of all kinds; real estate and insurNovember 20, 1925, Wisconsin Investment Co., Milwaukee. Increase stock to $100,000 preferred stock and 1,250 shares common no par value. (Amendment.) November 25, 1925, Badger State Finance Co., Madison. (Amendment.) Increase stock to $150,000. November 30, 1925, Dahinden-Schmitz Co., Milwaukee. Investment securities business. Increase stock to 500 shares preferred stock, par $100, and 500 shares common no par_value. December 3, 1925, Interstate Industrial Loan Co., Milwaukee, Wis.; $5,000 stock. General loan and financial business; sell securities of every kind. December 9, 1925, Richland Securities & Investment Co., Richland Center, Wis.; $50,000 stock; deal in bonds, notes, mortgages of all kinds; making loans, discounting all classes of paper; collections, abstracts of title; insurance, real estate, etc. December 18, 1925, Western Securities Co., Milwaukee; 1,000 shares, par $25, preferred stock and 1,000 shares common no par value stock. Deal in all kinds of stocks, bonds, obligations, and investments; financial agents; underwriters. December 24, 1925, Commercial Realty & Investment Co., Portage, Wis., 200 shares common no par value stock. Securities and real estate; all kinds of mortgages, bonds, notes, etc.; collections. December 24, 1925, Public Finance Corporation, Cudahy, Wis.; 1,000 shares common no par value stock. Loans, investments, financing, credit agency; surety bonds; insurance; real estate. December 30, 1925, Investors (Inc.)., Milwaukee, Wis.; $50,000 stock (preferred) and 625 shares common no par value. Deal in stocks, bonds, shares, debentures, notes, and securities of every kind. STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. MYLANDER, VICE PRESIDENT, Mr. GOLDSBOROUGH. What is your name, please? Mr. GOLDSBOROUGH. And your connection, please? Mr. MYLANDER. I am a vice president of the Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, and a member of the special committee on section 5129. Mr. GOLDSBOROUGH. Just proceed, in your own way, Mr. Mylander please. Mr. MYLANDER. I want to clear up, if I can, two points that have been in dispute here this afternoon. The first is that the Steagall bill, which is before your committee, not only will permit the States to tax national banks and State banks in a single class, but will put absolutely no limitation upon that taxation. We have at the present time under present section 5219, as Mr. Blinn said, four methods of taxing national banks. I have yet to find any State which has adopted yet one of three alternative methods to the share tax, which has been down here complaining about the operation of those taxes. Answering your question, Mr. Goldsborough, which was asked this afternoon, under the income method or the excise method of taxation national banks are taxed exactly as are other corporations, and we are perfectly satisfied with that method. When it comes to the first alternative, really, in section 5219, there is provided merely a tax on the shares of national banks, and that tax should be levied upon those shares, or rather, the shares of banks should be classed, our contention is, with other intangible property, because that is what they are. There are two systems of taxation, broadly speaking, one a taxation of the property itself, based on the value of the property, the other a taxation of income derived from property. In present section 5219 the States are given the right to tax national banks in either of those two ways, either in accordance with the income derived, or on the property which belongs to the bank, namely, its net worth. Therefore, you must, if you are going to continue the expressed policy of the Government of giving some protection to the national banks against the ravages of State legislatures, set up some method by which the taxation of banks may be compared. Under the income methods and the excise methods at present existing in section 5219, they are compared with the great class and the great mass of other corporations existing within the State. All we contend for is that in the taxation of the property, namely, the shares, the net worth of the bank, that they be classed with other intangible property in the State. Of course, the Steagall bill would wipe out all protection and all comparison except with the State banks. I want to give you just a little history of our experience in Ohio, to make my point clear: In 1851 we put in the Ohio Constitution the so-called "uniform rule of taxation", that all property, real, personal, tangible, intangible, of whatever character it was, should be taxed at its true value in money, that was the way the Constitution read, at 100 percent of its true value, and at the same rate. From 1851 to 1931, a period of 80 years, the State of Ohio operated under that system. Meanwhile, in that 80 years, we had had a tremendous change in the character of property in our State, just as there has been a change of character of property in every State. Property started out being largely land; then you got some buildings, then you got some other forms of tangible personal property, and pretty soon you began issuing pieces of paper which represented property, and you began to build up intangible property. Intangible property in Ohio, during those 80 years, just went off the tax duplicate, as it has every place else. You could not find it when it came to the purposes of taxation. It was locked up in a safety deposit box, or hid outside the State, or what have you. During all that time the banks were taxed on their shares at the full property rates, and at their full book value, and in some counties at their full market value. Meanwhile, during that period, other classes of corporations have grown up in our State, and although our constitution definitely said that all property must be taxed at its true value in money, in 1881-I think that is the correct date, and I am sorry I do not have my files here with me-our legislature exempted the shares of all domestic corporations from taxation. Consequently, a corporation organized in Ohio to do a business. analagous or competitive with a bank had no taxes to pay on its shares at all, and by another statute was allowed to select its own situs for taxation. Consequently, they went out into some township where the rate was exceedingly low, although their principal office and principal place of business would be in the city where the tax was high. In 1926 the national banks, my own banks being one of the plaintiffs, brought suit against our county auditor to prevent him from collecting the taxes on our shares, on the ground there was a great mass of other comparable property which was not being taxed. We won that suit in the United States district court. So just was our cause in the minds of the State of the Legislature of Ohio that despite the fact we lost our case in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, and later in the Supreme Court of the United States, the presentation we had made was so just that our legislature in 1930 proposed to the people of our State a constitutional amendment, which was adopted, which allowed the classification of property for purposes of taxation, which amendment was adopted by the people, and our law was changed. Mr. LESER. You do not mean your legislature was fair to the banks? Mr. MYLANDER. My object in bringing this up is to point out to you gentlemen that it is possible for a State so to amend its present tax laws that it can be fair to the banks and fair to itself under section 5219 as it stands today, without any change. It cannot continue. discriminatory taxation against banks under section 5219 as it stands today. That is our whole purpose in appearing before you, is to be classed fairly and taxed fairly, and to bear our fair share of the burden of taxation in our local communities. I do not think there is any object or any desire on the part of any member of this committee of ours to try to get any advantage, as has been suggested here. The banks are anxious to pay their fair share, but no more than their fair share. I want to advert just a moment to Mr. Luce's question a while ago to Mr. Foley, on the necessity or the advisability of the Congress placing such limitation upon the right of States to tax national banks, and, as we have proposed on the Fletcher bill on the other side, the State banks members of the Federal Reserve System. It is true, Mr. Luce, that since the adoption of the Federal Reserve System perhaps there is not the same need for the national banking system as a fiscal agent of the Federal Government as there was prior to that time, and it is true, also, that the State banks are welcomed into and made an integral part of the Federal Reserve System. But that is only a voluntary effort on their part. There is no line in the law any place which compels a State bank to stay a nember of the Federal Reserve System if it desires to get out. There is, of course, in the deposit-insurance law something that makes them get in by 1926, but at the present time there is nothing in the law which keeps a State bank a member of the Federal Reserve System if it wants to get out. Therefore, if the Congress is going to keep a banking system over which it has control in the picture, it must continue the national banking system, because they are the compulsory members of the Federal Reserve System. If this committee and the committee on the other side sit here and devise laws under which the national banks will operate and which are much more stringent than the laws in most of the States, as regards the State banks, then it seems to me that those bankers who choose to operate under a Federal charter and who operate a national bank should be given protection against the attacks of the State legislatures in matters of taxation. A moment ago Mr. Leser asked me a question if I admitted that the Legislature of Ŏhio had been fair to the banks. Yes; I do, sir. In our new tax law they were fair to the banks. Let me tell you about that. Mr. LESER. I congratulate you. Mr. MYLANDER. Our constitutional amendment was adopted. Our legislature meant to adopt a tax law. We went to them and we asked them to so devise a tax law that the banks of Ohio in the aggregate would pay the same amount of taxes; that the banks of Ohio and their competitors in a quasi-banking business, who had been paying no taxes at all previously, would pay the same amount of taxes that had been collected under our old uniform rule. They wrote our tax law with that intent. Despite the depression and the loss of over a billion dollars of bank resources in Ohio in the financial crash of 1932 and 1933, they collected during the year 1932 from the banks and the other financial institutions in the State of Ohio almost exactly the same amount of taxes that they collected in 1930, which was the last year of our old uniform rule tax law. They were fair, we were fair; they were satisfied, we were satisfied. Now, what has happened? We are up against it for revenue in the State of Ohio. We are having out troubles out there, as they are in every other State. Our schools are having their troubles. So what are they doing? Our legislature met first in January 1933 and adjourned in June. It has been called back since in five special sessions by our Governor, called back the last time for the sole purpose of taking care of changing our tax laws so as to bring in some additional revenue for our schools. All kinds of proposals have been made, a sales tax, an income tax, this sort of a tax, that sort of a tax; all of them so far have failed to get down. Since I have been here in Washington I have received a telegram from one of my colleagues in Ohio, which reads as follows: Sales tax voted down. Legislature turning now to gross-receipts tax and higher rates on bank shares as probable sources of revenue. We will not complain and we cannot complain in Ohio because the other financial corporations, our competitors, are all in the same class with ourselves. But if it were only the banks that were in a class with us, as would be proposed under the Steagall bill, they would stick us for higher taxes and leave the rest of them low, because it was not until we revoked the protection of section 5219 that these other financial corporations were brought into the class with us and began to pay any taxes at all. Thank you very much. Mr. SULLIVAN. What is your rate now? Mr. MYLANDER. Our rate now is 2 mills on shares, 2 mills on deposits, which the banks pay. |