811. 512352 Shipping/29
The Spanish Ambassador ( Padilla ) to the Acting Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor to refer to Your Excellency’s kind note of the 5th instant, relative to the exemption from taxation in the United States on revenue derived from operations of Spanish vessels, giving me a transcript of the communication which had been received in the matter from the Treasury Department, points of which were quoted thereunder.
It is a satisfaction for me to be able to express to Your Excellency the pleasure with which I have seen that the recent statements of the Spanish Minister of Finance, expressed in my note of February 11, 1930,7 accord with the proposals which the American Secretary of the Treasury was good enough to make in the letter of August 2, 1929 which he addressed to the Compañía Transatlántica, through my intermediary.8
[Page 812]In view of the foregoing, I request Your Excellency to be so good as to give the appropriate instructions to the corresponding authorities in order that they may take into account this decision with respect to the Spanish Shipping Companies in the sense that the profits of Spanish citizens which consist exclusively in earnings derived from vessels documented in Spain shall be exempt from taxation in the United States by the laws of this country, and particularly with respect to that set forth by Your Excellency in your note of September 26, 1929, regarding the case of the Compañía Transatlántica.
As soon as I received the above-mentioned note of the 5th of the current month of April from Your Excellency, I hastened to transmit the correspondence in copy to the Ministry of State at Madrid, and while I await a reply, it is my pleasing duty to express to Your Excellency my gratitude for the good will which from the beginning I have been able to value, both in the Treasury Department and in the Department under Your Excellency’s worthy direction, to arrive at a favorable solution of this matter, which cannot do less than strengthen the good relations existing between our two countries.
I avail myself [etc.]