Evening star., 1937-06-04
Tax Evasion and Spending
Reforms Other Than Plugging LoophoIes Might
Prove Beneficial.

| the same income must, has always
been unclear to me.
People who pay through the nose
are artists writer's and creative work.
ers, In those brief seasons when
they are prosperous. Miss Margaret
Mitchell, for instance. spends 10 years
Of her life and all of her experience
in writing novel. BY one of those
| occasional miracles 1t sells hundreds
Of thousands of copies, and Miss
Mitchell, over year or two, has to
report an income, and pay on it, which
may run into hundreds of thousands
pay 10 per cent of her earnings as
taxes. Actually, she is paying a
capital levy
1t Is statistically predictable that no
matter how many more novels she
writes, she will never again have a
financial success in any way COM
parable to Gone With the Wind"
But the Government acts as though
the 10 years Of work We're all tele-
scoped into one year, and As though
royalties from book, which is COM
pletely work of individual creation.
were the same thing as royalties from
coal mine. The bulk of the return
cannot even be classified as earned
income 1t is treated as though 1t
were lucky strike in gold.
Singers Have Capital Depletion.
Nor can the artist write off deple-
TONS OF capital, as the capitalist can.
A singer may not argue with the
Treasury Department that the human
| voice, for concert or operatic pur-
poses, has limited span of life Nor
may the writer urge that the creative
faculty is not inexhaustible and is
actually depleted forever by every
ma jor work.
Also, the tax inspectors have
habit OF making perfectly arbitrary
decisions As to what shall or shall
not be allowed exemption. II a lee
turer, talking in 20 cities 20 times
IN month finds it necessary to his
continued existence to sleep in draw
ing rooms on trains and engage suites
IN hotels in which to meet reporters
decree that the expenses are exor-
/ bltant, no matter what the vouchers
show. Then 1t becomes a Question
| not OF what the law SAYS. but of what
two not diSintereSted individuals
think.
Revision Proposed
If Congress would use the oppor-
/ tunlty afforded by the President 10
reconsider the whole tax system. IN
| Guiding the capital gains and undis-
trlouted tax. something constructive
| might be accomplished We might
md out, for instance, that our pres
ent system Of putting the bulk of
taxation directly upon productive in
dustry and letting the rich RENTER
! living from Government bonds get
| OF scot free, has exactly the opposite
effect from adding to employment and
increasing prosperity.
At the same time, Congress might
! consider whether social security ar
rived at by payroll taxes falling
heaviest on the largest employers of
labor and upon the youngest and most
vigorous workers is really a contri-
button to juster civilization As the
tax system now operates the indus
trialists who employ many men and
few machines pay more than those
who employ few men and many ma
chimes. And the same Government
which asserts that there is tech
nological unemployment inaeniously
/ deviseS means to accelerate it.
! This column hopes that all tax
evaders are caught and forced to
cough up. But it also hopes that the
Government will encourage more hon
esty and willingness on the part of the
taxpayer to meet his obligations bv
spending the money in a more careful
| fashion. Otherwise the task of the
Treasury Department will become
comparable to the task of enforcing
prohibition
(Copyrisht. 1872