54 BULLETIN 1106, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGBICULTTJEE. 
taxable status of the organization he will refer the affidavit and accompanying 
papers to the commissioner for decision. When an organization has established 
its right to exemption it need not thereafter make a return of income or any 
further showing with respect to its status under the law, unless it changes 
the character of its organization or operations or the purpose for which it was 
originally created. Collectors will keep a list of all exempt corporations, to 
the end that they may occasionally inquire into their status and ascertain 
whether or not they are observing the conditions upon which their exemption 
is predicated. 
Iii compliance with, tlie section just quoted all associations should 
submit their cases to the collector of internal revenue for the district 
in which they are located in order that their claim for an exemption 
may be passed upon. 
UNINCORPORATED ASSOCIATIONS. 
Inasmuch as some cooperative associations are unincorporated, a 
discussion of the legal status of such associations and the rights and 
liabilities of their members is in order. Such an association may be 
denned to be a body of persons acting together without a charter 
but employing to a greater or less extent the forms and methods used 
by incorporated bodies for the prosecution of the object for which 
formed. 55 
DIFFER FROM PARTNERSHIPS OR CORPORATIONS. 
The liability of members of an unincorporated association to third 
persons is frequently the same as that of partners, but this is not 
always true. In the absence of a statutory or contractual provision 
on the subject the death or withdrawal of a member does not dissolve 
the association. 56 A partnership, on the contrary, under such cir- 
cumstances is dissolved by the death or withdrawal of a member. 57 
Again, a corporation may sue or be sued in its own name, while at 
common law, and in the absence of a statute, an unincorporated as- 
sociation can not maintain an action in its own name but must sue in 
the names of all the members composing it, however numerous they 
may be. 58 Likewise, such an association in the absence of a statute 
can not be sued in its society name but the individual members must 
be sued. 59 A corporation may take title to property in its own name, 
but an unincorporated association in the absence of a statute is ordi- 
narily incapable as an organization of taking or holding either real 
or personal property in its name. 60 
55 5 C. J. 1333. 
5G Burke v. Roper, 79 Ala. 138 ; Lindcrmann. etc. Co. v. Stone Works, 170 111. A. 423 ; 
Hossack v. Dev. Assoc, 214 111. 274, 91 N. E. 439. 
57 Scholefield v. Eichelberger, 7 Pet. 586. 
53 St. Paul Typothetae v. St. Paul Bookbinders' Union No. 37, 94 Minn. 351, 102 
N. W. 725. 
59 Allis-Chalmers Co. r. Iron Molders' Union, 150 Fed. 155. 
00 Philadelphia Baptist Ass'n, v. Hart, 4 Wheat. 1, 4 L. ed. 499, 
