Looking back 12 years ago finds Alabama CUs fighting proposed taxes on the income and capital of state-chartered credit unions. Alabama state-chartered CUs currently face a 6% excise tax, which is already viewed as essentially an income tax but Alabama CUs say in addition to loopholes available, the burden is usually offset by the state regulator's lower examination fee. "We don't want to threaten the legislature with conversions," said Alabama Credit Union League Director of Governmental Affairs Dale Dalbey, "but the possibility of losing state charters is in the back of our minds. We feel very strongly in favor of dual chartering here." According to Dalbey the new tax proposals have enough weight to tip the economies of scale to federal charters. One of the plans would replace the excise tax with a 5% corporate income tax. Dalbey acknowledged that although the rate would be lower, "it switches us to a gray area where we don't know what the implications will be. Under a corporate tax, we wouldn't know about the loopholes or deductions." Also in that issue the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a ruling that transfer agents may no longer discriminate against CUs in the acceptance of signature guarantees on stock transfers.