Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-01-20
u. S. Gree+s
Income Tax
Newcomers
Treasury Believes They'll
Be Eager TO Do Bit a
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

tuition, affecting some seven mil
lion new subjects in income
brackets as low as $500 a year,
the treasury seriously hopes to
Danish from the public mind the
concept OF the taxpayer created
by VIII tombstone. the car
toonist, who pictures him as a
scrawny little man wearing
nothing but a barrel held up
by suspenders and always in a
hot fury over the waste of his
tax money by public officers.
Our friends at the treasury
believe the new members of the
lodge will be eager 10 pay their
bit not only 10 buy the tools of
war but 10 stand off initiation.
This is the first time the
treasury has seemed 10 care
W hat the income taxpayer
thought about anything.
a ways hitherto he was
treated as rich man who
probably had stolen or inherited
his money and the bureaucratS
of the New Deal laughed
raucously at his futile COM
plants.
remember an encounter with
an eX-newSpaperman who had
been drafted into the long and
eXtravagant war on poverty as
an aid 10 Jim Farley for duties
mostly political who said rather
moCkingly:
"Why don't YOU pay your In
come tax and quit squawking:"
I HAD paid my income tax and
L | was squaWking becau
SO 900 a year of the taxes pa
by me and others was being paid
10 relative Of a prominent
ideahSt for decorating embassies
abroad; 5000 "A year had been
paid 10 stranded Mississippi
politician 10 clip and paste news
paper items IN Scrapbooks and
10 keep him off the neck of Pat
Harrison: $4,000 was being paid
10 Jimmy Roosevelt 10 act As
one Of his fathers secretaries.
and countless other high salaries
were being paid 10 other per
sonal and political friends and
relatives Of high personages.
4 salary Of $4,000 or $4,000
= year is no mere nickel. II Is
thick money.
But. under the old scale ~
brackets, the income tax was
class tax and those who paid II
were deemed lucky TO have that
much income and poor sports
10 ask what was done with the
money.
And any one who asked too
mistakenly and DANGEROUSLY could
expect a call from one Of the
ctive-aCCountants Of the in
ternal revenue who would 90
over all his personal items and
even demand an explanation Of
ms spendlngs which were none
of the treaSurys business, as
well as Of his earnings.
This is literal truth
The income tax payers were a
small and politically friendless
minority and the government
itself created the figure in tho
barrel whom II Is now desired
20 retire from the scene lest the
new and much larger group Of
taxpayers come 10 regard the
tax as a burden
TNE treasury people are cor,
rect IN their belief that -
new income taxpayers Will y
quite willing 70 pay the tax for
war purposes
The old group has the same
spirit and with very few exCep-
tons has been willing all along
10 pay legitimate costs Of gov
eminent including the expense
OF new departments honestly IN
the long panic.
But neither group Will be
happy 10 continue TO support in
Vulnerable political press agents
on better salaries than they ever
were worth in private industry.
Neither group will willingly
contribute money out Of earn
ingS and go through the vexation
of making out returns so that
useless, eXtravagant and ornate
government reports may be
turned out in the form of bound
books singing the praises of this
or that cabinet member.
And nobody will be more SEN
sitive TO waste or graft than
those new taxpayers. hitherto
exempt. who gladly shower
down, say SIS, with the under
standing that they are paying
for war and then read that a
Malcolm Cowley. identified as a
poet, has suddenly been deemed
indispensable 10 the war effort
as an analyst of defense in
formation" at $1,000 a year
which represents the entire in
come taxes of 800 of those S25-
a-year-taxpayers.
The angry little guy in the
barrel should not typify the in
come taxpayer but it is up TO
he government TO show him
that his money is being spent
for legitimate purposes.
Copyrighted by United Features synd.. Ins.
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