Court Opinion

ID: 9443227
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:14:45.710135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:24.874347
License: Public Domain

CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
At first blush it may seem unnatural to view as a single unit assessment a tax for an unemployment fund assessed against employers on the basis of wages paid during the course of a year. I fear that the various tribunals which have decided against the government in this proceeding have taken that initial reaction as a guiding *214principle of interpretation to set aside a manifest legislative intent. For I can find nothing other than this feeling that the governmental contention cannot, i. e., ought not to, he so to support the result. There are no authorities that way;1 and the statutory language seems strongly contra. The several sections, I.R.C. §§ 1600-1611,. are too long to quote in full. They seem clear in the provision for an, “excise tax” on the employer “for each calendar year” of 3 per centum of the total wages “paid by him during the calendar year,” § 1600, computed according to a return filed by the employer “for such taxable year” not later than January 31 “next following the close of the taxable year,” § 1604, and payable in a single amount or, if the taxpayer so elects, in four equal installments, with the whole due if any installment remains unpaid on the last day for its payment, § 1605. And all the other provisions carry out this idea of a tax for the year computed-and paid as a whole after the year has closed. Repeatedly stressed are either the “calendar year” or the “taxable year.”
In fact, some provisions seem or tend to be unworkable on the theory of a tax accruing from day to day. Thus the credits allowed under § 1601 for payments to a state unemployment fund are pointedly “for contributions paid on or before the last day upon which the taxpayer is required under section 1604 to file a return for such year,” with a special provision covering later payments in part; the intent to pick up all such amounts in the single return at the year’s end, depending on the the fact that a federal tax has then become due, seems obvious. Likewise the provision for computing the maximum wage of $3,000 beyond which no tax is due, § 1607 (b) (1), concerns itself expressly with the amount paid an individual during a “calendar year,” and does not contemplate the possibility of prorated payments over a portion thereof. Other like provisions are cited; and there is no suggestion anywhere of the unreal idea — viewing any business— that the employer becomes a new and different person, destroying the unitary character of this assessment, by the mere chance of filing a petition for arrangement. Incidentally the departmental ruling has been to the contrary, S.S.T. 151, 1937 — 1 Cum. Bull. 464; S.S.T. 199, 1937 — 2 Cum.Bull. 405, a point which' should be of weight, particularly in the light of successive reenactments of the taxing statute.
We are not at liberty to rewrite a statute because we do not like its terms. Christensen v. United States, 2 Cir., 194 F.2d 978. But on close thought the policy does not seem unfair. Here is a business still going and required to pay as a primary charge along with wages a tax thereon for the unemployed. To include in this limited tax with a specified ceiling per employee the total for the year as required to' be assessed and paid by the statute, without refinements of confusing changes, does not seem unduly harsh. I would reverse.

. The only authorities, two lower court decisions, are in accord with the views expressed in this dissent. Matter of Demos Cafe. Inc., 1950, D.C.W.D.Mich., 5 CCH 1951 Fed.Tax Rep. ¶(9,223; Matter of Amoskeag Mfg. Co., D.C.Mass., 34 Am. B.R.,N.S., 469.