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APPENDIX
Applications for listing which involve questions relating to stock divi-
dends will be considered in the light of the foregoing. In view of the large
and constantly increasing number of listings on the Exchange, either origi-
nating in stock dividends or involving questions that have to do with stock
dividends, an effort will be made to obtain for the investor such information
as may place him in the position to determine in connection with stock divi-
dends received by him, to what extent they constitute true stock dividends
representing the capitalization of current or past earnings, and to what
extent, if at all, they represent merely split-ups involving an expression in
a new form of what was already his. In any event, it is felt that the indi-
vidual investor should make such independent investigations as seem desir-
able in order to be quite sure that he understands in each instance how he
has been affected by the declaration of a stock dividend.
When stock dividends are received by investment trusts, holding com-
panies or other corporations, the manner in which these dividends are
accounted for by the receiving company presents a problem somewhat dif-
ferent from that attending the accounting for the payment of stock divi-
dends by the declaring company. Current practice varies all the way from
the policy of ignoring stock dividends in their entirety in the income account
of receiving companies, to the policy of taking them into the income account
whether they have been realized upon or not at the full market value on the
date received.
Uniform accounting practice today seems to favor as sound procedure
the ignoring of stock dividends in the income account of receiving com-
panies. However, it has been urged on behalf of investment trusts, holding
companies and others, with what seems to us to be some measure of justi-
fication, that a technical interpretation of the nature of stock dividends may
operate to hamper management in the adopting of perfectly reasonable and
proper dividend programs of their own, whether in cash or in stock, and
may even under certain circumstances force them as recipients, for technical
reasons, to realize upon stock dividends which for business reasons they
would have preferred to hold.
It may be that accounting practice will undergo certain modifications in
the light of these new tendencies, but it is too early to form an opinion as
to the direction that this modification is apt to take. It is possible that a
schedule of all stock dividend received will suggest itself as a desirable
addition to the annual report of investment trusts, holding companies and
others; or, conceivably, a new departure in accounting theory may permit
the inclusion of stock dividends in some form or other in the income
accounts of receiving companies.
At the present time, it appears as if the Exchange could go no further
than to take the position that it will raise no objection to the method by
which investment trusts, holding companies and others account for stock
dividends received by them and not realized upon, provided there is the
fullest disclosure of the procedure adopted, and provided that these are not
included in the income accounts of the receiving companies at a greater
dollar value per share than that at which they have been charged to income
account or earned surplus account by the paying companies. The manner
in which receiving companies account for stock dividends received by them
and realized upon during the period under review is a matter which the
committee will pass on in connection with each specific instance.