WASHINGTON — Showing that three of the major banking trade associations are cooperating to ease bank tax burdens, the American Bankers Association, America's Community Bankers, and the Independent Community Bankers of America signed onto a letter supporting Subchapter S legislative reforms.

The three organizations jointly wrote Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) to thank them for introducing the Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007, which includes provisions expanding Subchapter S participation for small businesses. Under the Subchapter S provisions, capital gains would not be treated as passive income; change the treatment of bank director shares; it creates special rules for accounting changes for banks converting to Sub S status; and it changes the treatment of the sale of interest in certain Sub S subsidiaries, among other things.

"We support all the Subchapter S provisions that you have introduced in the bill as they will strengthen small businesses and the Subchapter S financial institutions that help finance them…The legislation will help ease the punitive double tax burdens now faced by thousands of small businesses nationwide. These pro-small business tax reforms will help foster economic growth, since small businesses play such an important job-creation role in our nation's economy," the letter read.