Excerpt from The Federal Income Tax in Its Relation to Life Insurance Companies The answer to this was that the mutual companies made large profits which should be treated as income and that the corporation tax law, which is now practically merged in the federal income tax law, had provided for a tax on such profits. The contention in favor of total exemption did not appeal to the majority of the House, but there was another question which gave rise to a great deal of animated discussion and is likely to be a subject of controversy when the bill reaches the Senate, viz: Are Policy Dividends Income? The varying views which arose as to whether the so-called dividends returned to policyholders by mutual life insurance companies should be treated as a deduction from gross income may be classified under three heads: 1st. That such "dividends" should be deducted on the ground that they were simply returns of overcharges. 2nd. That the whole of the dividends paid to policyholders should be included in income, on the ground that they represent profits. 3rd. That so much of the dividends as represented return of premium payment should be deducted; but so much as represented net earnings or profit should be taxed. 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.