The following activities tend to illustrate a common business interest:

  • Promoting higher business standards and better business methods and encouraging uniformity and cooperation by a retail merchants association,
  • Educating the public in the use of credit,
  • Establishing uniform casualty rates and compiling statistical information by an insurance rating bureau operated by casualty insurance companies under state authority,
  • Establishing and maintaining the in­tegrity of a local commercial market,
  • Operating a trade publication primarily to benefit an entire industry,
  • Encouraging the use of goods and services of an entire industry (such as a lawyer referral service whose main pur­pose is to introduce individuals to the use of the legal profession in the hope that they will enter into lawyer-client relation­ships on a paying basis), and
  • Attempting to influence legislation germane to the common business interests of an organization's members.

On the other hand, a hobby is not a business; thus, an organization that promotes the common interests of hobbyists does not qualify for exemption as a business league.


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