"Constitutionally, the Federal Reserve is a pretty queer duck," is the way longtime Fed enemy Wright Patman put it. At Rep. Patman's urging, the District of Columbia's tax collector once badgered the Fed to pay property taxes on its headquarters building. The Fed claimed it was a public institution, hence tax-exempt; countering this, it was argued that -- since commercial banks held stock in Federal Reserve Banks -- the Fed was a creature of the private sector, hence taxable. Things got so heated that the District of Columbia threatened to seize the Fed's headquarters and sell it at a public auction. After years of court wrangling, the Fed's view prevailed (as always).
Carl Remick