All annual reports should be filed on or before a fixed and uni-
form date. The Commission recommends as a suitable date for this
purpose the first day of March. The desired changes could be accom-
plished by a single enactment.

PENALTIES

Prior to the year 1915, .as stated elsewhere in this report, cor-
porations organized in Maryland were subject to assessment on
their shares, irrespective of the purpose for which they were organ-
ized or the nature of the business conducted by them. The Act of
1914, Chapter 324 (Article 23, Section 88-B), creates a class of
corporations designated as "ordinary business" corporations and
provides for a method of assessment directly of their tangible per-
sonal assets by the State Tax Commission and for a franchise tax
on their capital.

It was doubtless intended that corporations should be subject
to penalties for failure to report such information as would assist
the State Tax Commissioner in arriving at the value of shares;
examination, however, of Section 154 of Article 81 discloses the fact
that the penalty of |500 is imposable upon the president, cashier
or other chief officer and not upon the corporation itself, and further-
more that the State Tax Commission has no direct power to impose
it. The provisions for collection are complicated and cumbersome.

Of the many corporations chartered, some exercise their powers
for a short time only, while others are never organized; yet it is
necessary for the Commission to carry such corporations on its books
from year to year, until the Commission has good reason to believe,
from reliable information, that they will never again exercise any of
their corporate powers. The failure to report for two successive
years should be considered a reason for the annulment of such
charters in proceedings to be instituted by the Attorney General
on the certification of this Commission. To avoid unnecessary
expense and trouble, the law should authorize any number of cor-
porations to be covered by a single proceeding.

In the case of those corporations which are delinquent, penalties
should be imposable directly by the Commission. In another part