76 ~~ The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After 
rations that are either inactive or have no net in- 
come. The lowest percentage of firms reporting net 
income was registered in 1921, when 48.05 per cent 
were so conditioned. The highest percentage oc- 
curring in 1917, was 66.04. ‘“No-net-income” cor- 
porations averaged lowest in 1917 and highest in 
1921, with a percentage of 34.91 in 1927; inactive 
corporations for that year were 10.39 per cent of 
the total. 
In addition to these data, a new light is thrown on 
the question of proportion of no-profit corporations, 
as well as upon that of the real profits of all cor- 
porations by the researches of Carl Snyder, of the 
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Snyder 
calculates that the average annual net profits of all 
corporations, year in and year out, amount to about 
IO per cent on gross income, and that they are not 
to be reckoned by returns that show “no net profits” 
for tax purposes. 
Mr. Snyder finds that of 455,000 corporations 
some two to three thousand do from 70 per cent to 
90 per cent of the nation’s business. Fully three 
quarters of these reporting do a small business of 
$200 a week or less. These might, as indeed, a 
large part of them do, absorb their real net profits 
in salaries of officials. 
Such is the case with about half of the reporting 
corporations, as estimated by Mr. Snyder. In addi- 
tion, many forms of corporations, such as incorpo- 
rated estates, make officials of their beneficiaries who 
absorb profits as salaries.