Seward daily gateway., 1925-01-09
TAX REPORTS AND PUBLICITY

The .demagogues assumed that only large taxpay- ers who were supposed to be tax dodgers, would ob ject to publicity of income tax returns. Experl- ence has shown that the dissatisfaction arises chief ly among small taxpayers who resent the disclosure that they haven large an income as they wanted their friends to think they had. On the other hand the large taxpayers rather proud to have their names blazoned the front pages of the pa pers with the amount of their contribution to the public treasury.
 But personal pleasure or displeasure ought not to be the controlling factor in deciding whether the publicity shall continue. The issue should be de- termined solely on the ground of general public well fare.
 The fact is that there is not much opportunity for the large income taxpayer to escape any of his burden unless he does so by investing in non-taxa- ble securities, which he is legally entitled to do few concerns-not very large however-have tried the expedien of keeping two sets of books, one false for the inspection of the income tax agents and the other for their private information. Some of these have been caught and duly punished. For obvious reasons frauds of that kind cannot be very large or numerous. A concern large enough to employ book keepers must let the bookkeepers in the secret, and the bookkeeper the information for re- venge or blackmail. Moreover transactions con- ducted by large concern always have two parties in interest and the reports of the other party serve as check on any person trying to fasify his own income tax report. Fraud is practically impossible in the case of very large taxpayer for the reason that he does not personally conduct either his busl ness or his bookkeeping. He must rely upon others to do this for hs and he could not get all Of them into fraudulent transaction if he so desired The large taxpayer is certain to be caught Ill any attempted fraud in his income tax return.
 All this must be perfectly obvious. There pro bably is not of the thousand largest taxpayers in the United States who ever makes entry i'll his books with his own pen who could tell what hls own income is unless he called in bookkeeper or secretary to tell him. If he gave his attention to keeping his books he would waste much time he would have no income to report. Moreover, even if he were willing and able to commit the fraud the danger to his reputation in of detection would be so great that he could not and would not take the chance.
 Those are practical considerations ln connection with the honesty of income tax reports The man who can get away with false income report is the small taxpayer whose transactions are known only to himself and recorded only in book kept by him. self or not recorded at all. The considerations above noted indicate to a large extent why the small taxpayer dislikes the publicity feature of the law All men like to appear prosperous-it help their bus iness-and if the income tax returns do not show as much prosperity they have been supposed to enjoy then their neighbors at once jump at the in evitable conclusion that they have been pretending or have lied to the revenue collector. In either event, the inference is bad. It hurts man pride if not his reputation.
 That's why many small taxpayers want the publicity feature of the tax law repealed.
 We know why civilization quit work and pershed. Crossword puzzles 1000 years old.