Colorado § 10-14-102 - Fraternal benefit societies - what constitutes.

§ 10-14-102. Fraternal benefit societies - what constitutes.

Any incorporated society, order, or supreme lodge, without capital stock, conducted solely for the benefit of its members and their beneficiaries and not for profit, operated on a lodge system with ritualistic form of work, having a representative form of government, and which provides any of the benefits enumerated in section 10-14-401, is hereby declared to be a fraternal benefit society.

Source: L. 93: Entire article amended with relocations, p. 586, § 1, effective July 1.

Editor's note: This section is similar to former § 10-14-101 as it existed prior to 1993, and the former § 10-14-102 was relocated to § 10-14-103.

ANNOTATION

Annotator's note. Since § 10-14-102 is similar to § 10-14-101 as it existed prior to the 1993 amendment to article 14 which resulted in the relocation of provisions, relevant cases construing that provision have been included in the annotations to this section.

For a nonprofit corporation lacking indicia of fraternal society, see Int'l Serv. Union Co. v. People ex rel. Wettengel, 101 Colo. 1, 70 P.2d 431 (1937).

Lack of lodge system and representative government subject corporation to premium tax. The general assembly imposes a tax upon gross premium income of insurance companies. Fraternal and benevolent corporations defined as those which have a lodge system with a ritualistic form of work and representative form of government are exempted. It has clearly defined what is meant by "lodge system" and "representative government". Since the reorganization, Homesteaders has not had a lodge system; it has not had a representative form of government; nor has it performed any ritualistic work. These are requirements essential to a status that would exempt it from the tax under discussion. Beery v. Homesteaders Life Co., 146 Colo. 218, 361 P.2d 127 (1961).