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do not satisfy it. WFNNB's articles of association significantly
limit its banking activities:
The association
(i) will engage only in credit card operations;
(ii) will not accept demand deposits or deposits that
the depositor may withdraw by check or similar
means for payment to third parties or others;
(iii) will not accept any savings or time deposit of less
than $100,000;
(iv) will maintain no more than one office that accepts
deposits;
(v) will not engage in the business of making commercial
loans; * * *
WFNNB is a special purpose institution that is not of much
use to a foreign business customer seeking banking services
except as the issuer of a private-label credit card or as the
recipient of large deposits of funds that are not needed
immediately. Those are insufficient services for us to conclude
that WFNNB was “carrying on the banking business” as Congress
used that phrase in section 956(b)(2)(A).
2. Dividend Equivalence
As originally enacted, in 1962, the repatriation provision
classified as U.S. property virtually all investments by a
controlled foreign corporation of its earnings in the United
States. There was little, if any, reason for Congress to include
a related-party restriction in the exception for section 956
deposits.11 By 1976, however, the tax writing committees of
11 From the enactment of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956
(BHCA), Pub. L. 91-607, ch. 240, 70 Stat. 133, currently codified
at 12 U.S.C. secs. 1841-1850 (1994), until its amendment by the
(continued...)
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