The Wilmington morning star., 1944-01-28
BY wEsTBRooK PEGLER

4NGW 1OIlIA.-OuT NOuSIGSS mas maze an
absurd and horrible mess of the income tax,
originally intended to raise money but now
used frankly to handicap the efficient, dill.
gent and, or just plain lucky few who are
able to make big money just as good golfers
are compelled to concede strokes to the dubs.
That change in intent seems to be fixed now
so there is no use arguing about it for the
time being, although the case might be re-
opened under sincerely reactionary govern
ment after the war. But it is possible to sim
pity the law and the return, and this should
be done right away because it is no exagger.
alton to say that as matters stand right now
nobody understands the business of reckoning
tax and the best authorities just guess. 1t
IS certainly a bad law which compels the
citizen to appeal to lawyer or accountant
to untangle the idiotic confusion of its Ian
guage or waste time from his work to 20
into a hubble with a Treasury agent who
doesn't really understand it himself but goes
by arbitrary interpretations from above. Il
is bad law, too which suddenly tags a
citizen for sum payable in one year equal
to his entire income for that year or ex-
ceeding it but that, too, is little way off
the point of today's essay.
The taxpayer with a fixed income certainly
has right to know how much he is going to
owe for the current year so that he can adj
just his living expenses and other commit
mentS and earmark the tax money as he
goes along. The withholding tax principle is
the surest and most convenient for both gov
eminent and citizen in the case of the person
whose income consists Of salary, commissions.
bonuses and royalties; but it is used only
sparlngly and thus is no help to a great ma
jorlty OF the most productive class of income
taxpayer.
Conscientious people want to paw their dues
and would prefer never to touch that portion
OF their earnings at all. On the contrary, they
would be greatly relieved if the law were so
revised that their government took down it's
own share first by means Of a checkoff at
the source. This would eliminate not only the
ordeal OF preparing the crazy return which,
IN many cases, takes several days of great
concentration and requires professional help
but also the bout with the reviewing agent
who comes around long afterward and makes
the victim 60 over the whole thing again
These agents formerly at least had political
malice and bullied the taxpayer on questions
which could have been decided the other way
Henry 'Morgenthau took notice of this abuse
TO the extent OF warning his men to cut it out
after publicity had shown up specific instances
OF spite against individuals. 1t may have been
discontinued but even so there are many
taxpayers now subject to this bothersome re-
view who could be relieved of the task by
the checkoff.
The personal exemptions nowadays are mere
tokens, to use word which our European
friends used to employ when they would send
us 81 cents every now and again on account
OF their debts for World War I. It would be
better to eliminate these deductions entirely
and the paper work which they require and
adjust the matter by lowering the rate on
the earlier brackets. It is not only the amount
Of the tax and the high rates in the upper
brackets which burden the taxpayer but also
his uncertainty as to what he is going to owe
his inability, therefore, to make any sensible
provision to meet the bill, and the terrible
job of reading the instructions and filling out
the return
This is not written with intent to ridicule
Congress which has taken bad beating from
both the executive branch and elements of
the press in recent years. Our statesmen
didn't create this grotesque situation inten-
tionally but did so under political pressure
from the socialistic and other leftish powers
But the whole effect is simply awful and the
worst reproach to Congress as an institution
that has occurred in the whole Roosevelt rule
And people who have struggled through this
years experience may be pardoned for re-
flecting that only Congress of fools or de-
islative branch could have invented such a
painful sed inefficient snsrl.