The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-02-16
INCOME TAX PUBLICITY

server hands this wallop to the new pub
icity law affecting federal income tax re-
turns:
eff YOUR new income blank has come in it was
accompanied by little pink slip that has right
smart of tale to tell.
ct means that there is no longer to be any
secrecy about this transaction which individuals
and their Uncle Sam have been having among
themselves.
1.-The incomes are, going to be publieized and
don't you know the shoppers are in clover!
1T will be entirely legal hereafter for the tell
tale gosspers to have look into what their friends
and neighbors are earning and how little of it they
give away.
"They will go home tell their wives who, in turn,
will take it to the sewing circle after which there
will hardly be any need for the newspapers to
bother with it as a matter of news
perhaps, there is virtue in opening the books
upon such hitherto guarded secrets, although it IS
rather straining to think at the moment what 1t
could possibly be.
Except for forging ones curiosity, it does no
more good to know what salary the other fellow
makes than to sneak around to see how many eggs
he had for his breakfast. if any"
After careful examination no unpreju-
diced citizen has been able to discover a
single sensible reason for the federal in
come tax publicity law, 1t will not serve
a single useful or good purpose. 1t Will
not aid in the collection of income taxes
or increase tax collections in any way. On
the other hand, a number of serious OBJ
jections to the law have been pointed out
by critics of the measure.
The income tax publicity law is a meas
ure similar to that we'll known act passed
mary years ago by Congress, requiring
newspapers to make public certain facts
about ownership and circulation. No rea-
son for the enactment of this law has ever
been discovered; and while it is regarded
as more or less of a nuisance in newspaper
offices, the newspapers never have given
it enough attention to try to have it re-
pealed.
1t is thought that the newspaper pub
hcity law was incubated in the fertile
brain of some Congressman who was mad
with the newspapers and was seeking a
way to punish them. His anger must have
been stirred only against daily newspapers,
however, as the law requires circulation
statement from daily papers only and al
lows all others to get by without it. As
the only possible value to the public in
this measure is contained in the circulation
statement provision, it is clear that the
author of the law was not seeking to bene
fit the public, otherwise he would have
required circulation statements from all
newspapers.
Of course, the newspaper law was loud
ly heralded in Congress as one that would
uncover the ownership negro in the wood
pile of almost every daily newspaper in
the country; but strange to say, no colored
gentleman has ever emerged, anywhere in
the country, under the vigorous Sherlock
ing of this colossal statute.
No citizen of the United States has ever
been benefited in the smallest measure bv
this law, which has cost both the newspa-
pers and the government quite a sum of
money. The only purpose it has served is
that of affording some Congressman al
outlet for their anti-newspaper spleen.
The income tax publicity law has all the
indications of originating in the mind of a
political demagogue. It is designed to
make Congressman popular with the peo-