The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1921-07-28
SOME PRINCIPLES
OF TAX CHANGES
Repeal of Excess Profits
Tax First Step In Hard
ing Program
3-CENT POSTAGE
~.. is PREDICTED
Postmaster General Finds More Revenue
Necessary to Get Improved Service
Cutting Down of Expenditures Does
Not Bring Expected Relief.
~ By DAVID LAWRENCE.

| ~a. BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
| Especial Dispatch to The Reformer.)
Copyright 1921. #
WASHINGTON, July 2S.-Tax pro
grams are like timetables subject to
change without notice. But certain prin-
ciples have been agreed upon by President
Harding and administration leaders which
can be of some guidance to taxpayers.
Those principles, as explained at the
White House, do not necessarily commit
the administration to a cut and dried
procedure which. will prevent a change of
mind. In other words, nothing is final
until it is actually in the bill that passes
both houses but so far as anyone can
foresee, indeed the best judgment that
can be marshaled at present, leads to the
following conclusions:
First. the excess profits tax must be re-
pealed. This action will be taken not
merely because the reevnue from excess
profits has diminished to such an extent
that it compares unfavorably with the
immense amount of damage done TO bust
ness as a whole through the restraints
placed upon individual enterprise, inltla-
tive and expansion. #..
More Mail Revenue.
Second. the return to three-cent cost
age for first-elaSs mail. his sep IS 10
be taken reluctantly by the Republican
administration for the shrewd Albert Sid
ney BurlesOn, postmaster general under
the Democratic. administration, took on
the extra cent and the fear is that Demo
cratic campaign orators viii point to the
extra postage as a sign that the poor
mans burdens have not been decreased
but increased Nevertheless. the three
cent tax is favored as a great revenue pro-
Queer and as the best means of getting
better postal service. Will Hayes, the
new postmaster general, is trying to pro-
duce an efficient postal service and is max
ing good headway- He finds it necessary
TO spend money to get efficiency. He has
been told by business men to go ahead and
incur a deficit but deliver the mail on time.
SO the price of efficiency is an extra cent
on postage. The general opinion is that
the stamp tax viii hardly be felt, n
Third. cutting down of the large sur-
taxes. The hardest thing in the world
to explain TO the average taxpayer is the
why and the wherefore of a surtax. The
income tax blanks give no inkling "a TO
how the scientific tax experts devised it
and the taxpayer doesn't see any particu-
lar scheme of percentage behind it. The
large surtaxes have, however, operated
like excess profit laws to destroy iuitia-
tive at the very time when men of capital
should be using it TO promote American
enterprises, giving employment to the I'M
employed and starting the wheels of bust
ness and industry on the road to sound
and INFLATED prosperity. That there will
be a dimunitiOn of large surtaxes can be
taken for granted.
No Show for Sales Tax.
Fourth, all the schemes for sales tax,
turnover tax, production tax or consum-
er's tax will go by the board. That's
the trend at present. The administration
has listened to all the various plans pro
posed and attempted to find one that
wouldn't increase the burden on the ulti-