Evening star., 1937-06-16
Needed RevisiOns.

AS this is written a majority of the
mittee, undeterred by the votes on Mon
day, seems determined to present the
omnibus tax bill to the House on one
condition only: That members of Con-
gress vote either to tax themselves under
local income tax, or to invite the
ridicule Of the country by eXempting
themselves and a handful of highly
paid Federal employees from tax which
they are not required to pay at home.
Whether the Rules Committee will ac-
cept that condition is apparently to be
decided today, but the District Commit
tee seems unreasonably insistent on a
tax measure which offers many diff
culties and inequities under the condi-
tions peculiar to the District of Columbia.
II the special rule is granted and
the bill comes up tomorrow, or if the
District Committee wisely withdraws it
AS it should-for further amendment,
there are important changes which
SlOulQ De Hldue.
l. If the income tax is retained, with
or without taxation of congressman and
few favored Federal employees, it
should be substituted, as originally pro-
posed, for the tax on intangibles. The
fear that the income tax might be
declared invalid is no excuse for re-
TO mi i,ota
2. 1t is doubtful if there is another
tax anywhere similar to the business
privilege-gross receipts tax hurriedly
written and dumped into this omnibus
bill, manifestly without careful study of
Its effects. A blanket tax on gross re-
ceipts"-not gross income-with no eX-
emptions and applied without regard to
the nature of the business taxed is an
unheard Of proposition.
The bill is apparently modelled in part
on the West Virginia sales tax. But
the West Virginia sales tax applies, in
the ma jority of cases, to gross income"
not gross receipts. 1t contains many
necessary exemptions and allowances
providing at the outset a tax exemption
OF s25 for individuals, thus sparing the
|1ittle fellow" It's rates are fixed in ac-
cordance with the nature of the business
taxed. It's definitions are specific, while
those in the District version of the bill
Invite ambiguous interpretations This
bill should be killed outright or revised
to make it a reasonable sales tax. AS
1t is, 1t Is probably unWorkable and
certainly unfair. While some amend
ments were hurriedly drawn yesterday
afternoon by members of the House Dis
trict Committee, in an attempt to remedy
some defects in the measure previously
pointed out by The Star the bill is sus-
pect as written and deserves a section
by-section scrutiny of all provisions.
3. The automobile weight tax should
be applied to the avoidance of the deficit
in the general fund, and not applied
exclusively to the highway fund, where
there is no deficit. The automobile
weight tax was originally proposed and
lldS always Uebll DIS d SuU-
stitute for the existing personal prop
erty tax on automobiles. 1t should be
made a substitute tax-not an addi-
tional tax
4. The inheritance tax seems to have
been so carelessly drawn as to remain
full of loopholes for avoidance-not
evasion-of the tax by wealthy persons,
while taking its grab from small in
heritances. The estate tax, on the other
hand, has always been proposed here
rs method of obtaining for the District
the eighty per cent credit allowable
lander the Federal tax of 1926 and the
estate tax seems well and simply drawn
with the exception Of its failure to give
credit for inheritance taxes paid in the
District. But the inheritance tax should
be Abandoned for the yield is relatively
Insignificant or else rewritten to close
Its loopholes, with reliance for revenue
placed on the estate tax.
The perfection or even the near per-
fection OF a complicated, eighty page tax
bill on the floor of the House is not an
inviting prospect-either for the House
or for the local taxpayer Therefore the
work of correction should be done in
ron,rittee