Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-09-26
FIGURING ON TAXES

1SUSI8ls 8IAIS 01IO 1OS0As AS AASs
4 pleasant task for many citizens,
for all sorts Of taxes are growing
larger. and while eventually they
are shifted 90 that consumers OF
goods and services pay the bulk OF
them, it is up to certain individuals
to provide for their initial pay
ment. The state, county, city and
school taxes can be figured out
pretty accurately in advance. The
sum total Of these will not be
pleasant to contemplate, and they
must be paid next November.
With rare exceptions they will be
found greater in their sum total
than the year before. That is,
however, the general experience.
Every year taxes for state, county,
city and school purposes get
heavier In this state. The citizen
taxpayer through sad experience,
has come to expect it. He will not
be agreeably disappointed this year
we fear.
BUT when he comes to pay the
federal tax for 1921 which has ac-
crued on the last day of Decem-
Der and for which he must make
return before three months from
that time, he finds that no infor-
nation at all is available regarding
the sum the individual taxpayer
will be required to pay. The tax
revision bill is not finished by con-
sress. Predictions as to when It
will be finished are conflicting.
Senator Walsh of this state, on oc-
casion of a recent visit to Great
Falls, expressed the conviction
that it would be the end of the year
before the revised tax bill would
be in the hands of the president
for his signature. The Republican
leaders say they hope to pass the
bill up to the president in few
weeks.
Assuming that the bill as it
came from the lower house, and
as amended in the senate commit
tee room will pass unchanged, and
there is no certainty on the SUBJ
ject, we will have a tax bill even
more complex and complicated
than the old one was. Everyone
who ever made out or tried to
make out a federal tax return on
tn, blanks furnished him by the
government knows what that
means. Instead Of trying to sim
plify the old tax law by repeating
it and substituting more simple
law for it, the old law is retained
in its complex provisions, but many
of these provisions are amended.
In order to understand the revised
tax law the taxpayer must first
understand the old tax law, and all
the treasury rules and regulations
laid down for its application to
his affairs by the taxpayer. In
addition he must fit the new
amendments into the old law, and
know how the treasury experts will
rule in regard to the changes made
In the old law. IF the taxpayer,
after several years of struggle to
understand just what he owes
Uncle Sam in taxes, has an idea
that he has mastered the subject,
and very few have arrived at that
conviction, he will now find that
he has a lot of new problems on
his hands when he comes to make
out his new tax return. That fact
constitutes an outrage on the tax
payer in our opinion.
Senator Smoot and a few other
Republican leaders tried to sim
plify the new tax law. They were
turned down by the senate COM
mittee. Democratic senators have
no influence with the committee
and the Republican leaders appear
to consider it a strictly partisan
affair. It may be that Senator
Smoot can find enough Republican
and Democratic senators on the
floor of the upper chamber to aid
him in amending the bill as it
comes from the committee SO that
it will be made simple enough for
the man of ordinary intelligence
to understand, but the prospect for
such desirable result looks pretty
slim 1t this time.
We are not so much concerned
about the rates in the revised tax
bill as we are about its complex
and complicated provisions. The
government declares that it must
have 4 certain sum Of money out
Of the pockets Of its citizens,
something over four billion dol
lars. We are told that this is the
ilreducible minimum. We think