The Daily Alaska empire., 1947-03-19
INCOME TAX BILL KILLED
 BY SENATE
Two Companion Measures Left One Amendment
 Adds Unique Credit

This legislatIve sessions reviv- al of the often-proposed net income tax has gone the way of it's fore runners; into the discard. The Alaska Senate yesterday after noon knocked out the measure s. B. 81-by a T to g vote.
 The two other tax measures , dropped in by Senators Victor Rivers and Norman Walker and which, with the income tax as the basis, were ballyhooed as rounding out a fundamental tax program for the Territory, are still hanging fire in the Senate. One of them, the general property tax -S.B 80-tops the calendar for ,today.
 Coasted into third reading dur ing the 5oth Day shuftle, the in come tax bill was moved back for amendments yesterday and half dozen amending attempts wrote one very reaching change which would have allowed practically any taxpayer to go scott free of the proposed territorial levy of 10 percent of Federal income tax.
 Incentive Credit | Senator Don Carlos BroWnell proposed and secured adoption Of an amendment whereby any amounts invested by taxpayer, in new construction or improve ment of business, farm or residen- tial buildings, would be credit against the tax. This amendment the Seward Senator said, was an incentive" provision to induce people to put their money back into Alaska
 Senator Walker protested against the amendment as "unheard of; i; then voted for it.
 BroWnell also endeavored to fst1ike from the bill the general $45 tax credit for individual AL sska residents, but the motion failed, as did one by Senator William Munz to up the credit to $100.
 In debate on passage, advocates of the net income tax saw the , measure as the only possible way to close the gap between antici- pated revenues and minimum ex penditures for the next biennium. Practically all the old arguments for and against an income tax -were brought out and polished up
 Studied Plan
 Senator O. D. Cochran charged that there has heen "a studied plan to spend all the money possible so as to stampede" the bill through He held for an end to prolific spending" as the best way to balance the budget-not passage of 'so-called progressive measure" which often prove in op- eration to be destructive" President Andrew Nerland put Senator Charles Jones in the chair while he took the floor to ask what the income opponents suggested in place of it? It has been the same story for 30 years, he said-opposition to trying any thing new, experimenting.
 Senator Jones had maintained : that the special tax credit provid- ed for Alaska residents would re- suit in the bills being thrown out by the courts as discriminatory Let the courts throw it out, was Nerland's answer. Then a way can be sought to correct the faults
 Senator Frank Peratrovich de- clared his intention to support my measure that will bring in revenue"
 e Estimate Challenged
 Senator Edward D. Coffey chal- lenged the Tax Commissioners es- innate that the bill would bring in two and one-half million dol lars for the biennium. Co-author Rivers replied that figure was fedcIleQ Uy Oi " P$A cent of Federal income tax paid by Alaskans.
 Coffey also saw Is assistants to the Attorney General trying to collect the tax" He pointed out that the tax could not be withheld !. from salaries of Federal employees "a contention admitted by Rivers. There are 65 Federal agencies in the Territory, Coffey said, all with employees that are transferred here, there and all over the United States. They would nave to be caught up with before the tax could be collected. He also claimed that withholding from the checks of other transient workers would not work out, as experience in some states has shown that