<p>The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST), which was enacted on December 4, 2015, requires that aggregate Federal Reserve Bank surplus not exceed \$10 billion.</p>
<p>The amounts of the line items &quot;Other liabilities and capital&quot; on table 1, and &quot;Surplus&quot; on tables 5 and 6 reflect the payment of approximately \$19.3 billion to Treasury on December 28, 2015, which was necessary to reduce aggregate Reserve Bank surplus to the \$10 billion limitation in the FAST Act.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20151231/" rel="noreferrer">Source: Factors Affecting Reserve Balances - H.4.1</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-07-29T21:48:06.997Z
and that money is held in the *Treasury General Account* with *The Federal Reserve Bank of New York*...
PatrickT
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-07-29T11:32:48.003Z
2022-07-29T11:32:48.003Z
AKdemy
<p>Here's a graph of the capital on the Federal reserve balance sheet from 2003 until present:</p>
<p><a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WCTCL" rel="noreferrer">https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WCTCL</a></p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/OHDiR.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/OHDiR.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>Capital dropped by 32% in December 2015.</p>
<p>Is there anywhere I can read about why the capital dropped so dramatically at that point?</p>
<p>And perhaps why has it not changed much since then?</p>

<federal-reserve>
Why did the Federal reserve balance sheet capital drop by 32% in Dec 2015?
dharmatech
# Why did the Federal reserve balance sheet capital drop by 32% in Dec 2015?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-07-29)

Here's a graph of the capital on the Federal reserve balance sheet from 2003 until present:

<https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WCTCL>

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/OHDiR.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/OHDiR.png)

Capital dropped by 32% in December 2015.

Is there anywhere I can read about why the capital dropped so dramatically at that point?

And perhaps why has it not changed much since then?

**Tags:** federal-reserve


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2022-07-29. Score: 10 | Accepted answer

The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST), which was enacted on December 4, 2015, requires that aggregate Federal Reserve Bank surplus not exceed \$10 billion.

The amounts of the line items "Other liabilities and capital" on table 1, and "Surplus" on tables 5 and 6 reflect the payment of approximately \$19.3 billion to Treasury on December 28, 2015, which was necessary to reduce aggregate Reserve Bank surplus to the \$10 billion limitation in the FAST Act.

[Source: Factors Affecting Reserve Balances - H.4.1](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/20151231/)

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: and that money is held in the *Treasury General Account* with *The Federal Reserve Bank of New York*...  

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