River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1922-03-23
THE SPECIAL SESSION


state is the special session call of the
Legislature issued on the 14th. In
order to give an understanding of the
significance or purpose of the call a
brief explanation is necessary. Sew
enty-five per cent of individual and
at least fifty per cent of all corpora
lions put off the filling out of their
income tax blanks until the last ten
days of the time given for filing. This
brings into the assessors a flood of
returns which is not possible to
scrutinize closely, either for the as
SCISSORS or the Tax Commission. So
it has come about ever since the in
come tax law became effective that
many corporations have been called
upon to give more data to correct
their returns. Thus many thousands
of dollars additional to the sums col
lected on the basis of the first re-
turns are each year collected as the
tax commissions accountants go over
the returns. Under the law an IN
come tax payer may have his returns
corrected for three years back, if he
is found to have omitted some items.
This correction of returns naturally
has grown to big proportions, and
during the last Legislature the Tax
Commission asked for an appropria-
ton of 100000 to carry on this cor
receive work, the commission point
ing out that no corrections nor col
lections could be made more than
three years back, and as the uncor-
rected returns were piling up, it was
necessary for it to put on bigger
force of accountants, and thus save
large sum of money to the state.
The Legislature was under the eco
nomy pressure and appropriated only
$4,000 for the purpose named. Less
than six months ago the State Board
of Education transferred to the Tax
Commission, as it was authorized to
do under certain contingencies, the
sum of $4,000 to aid in the examina-
ton of income tax returns, and the
recovering of money due the state,
on corrected returns. This briefly
stated, was the situation up to the
14th when the Governor issued call
for special session of the Legisla-
ture for the stated purpose of remov-
ing the secrecy clause of the income
tax law.
The so-called secrecy clause is in
fact no secrecy clause at all so far as
the collection of taxes is concerned.
That is to say, the taxing officials of
the state can probe to the very heart
of any taxpayers affairs and discov-
err whether he has misrepresented his
tax obligations. 1t is because of this
power of the tax officials to uncover
every item, every fact about a mans
or corporations business that has
enabled the Tax Commission to go
over the returns, and collect thous
ands of dollars on returns wrongly
made. What the removal of the So
called secrecy clause means, then is
that if a curious or malicious neigh
Dor wishes to find how much the 9TH
er fellow owes, or how much he made
or lost in his last deal, or, if a jeal-
Gus merchant or manufacturer wish
es to find out what profits the other
fellow is making, the removal of the
secrecy clause will enable him to do
so. Every farmers private business,
the amount he owes the bank, or that
somebody owes him; the amount he
expended to give son or son-in-law
start, and lost it, every merchant
and manufactures will if the secrecy
clause is removed have every detail
of his business subject to malicious
prying or publication in the newspap-
ers. The tax officers now, as has
been said, can go into all these de-
tails. so that no one can escape pay
ing his just taxes if the Tax Commits
sion be given help enough to thor
oughly go over all returns.