76 ~~ The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After

rations that are either inactive or have no net income.
 The lowest percentage of firms reporting net
income was registered in 1921, when 48.05 per cent
were so conditioned. The highest percentage occurring
 in 1917, was 66.04. ‘“No-net-income” corporations
 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 corporations
 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 addition,
 many forms of corporations, such as incorporated
 estates, make officials of their beneficiaries who
absorb profits as salaries.