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Show ! MINE LEASING CAN RESUME AS RESULT JUDGES DECISION What Utah mining leaders I term the "go" signal to wide-scale wide-scale mine leasing throughout i the west was issued Monday bv the United States department of ; justice when it announced that no appeal will be made to the i decision of the Utah federal dis-; dis-; trict court denying the govern-! govern-! ment the right to collect old age security and unemployment com-1 com-1 pensation taxes from mine lessees, i The announcement brings to an , end controversies which have ; raged between mining men and the federal government ever j since the latter began collecting ! social security taxes on lessees, ; who contended they were con-j con-j tractors, and therefore not sub-: sub-: ject to social security taxation. ' Handed Down June 16 I The Utah court decision was handed down on June 16 by Federal Fed-eral District Judge Tillman D. Johnson in favor of the Combined Combin-ed Metals Reduction company, which sued the government for $18,655.79 paid under protest as social security taxes on lessees of mining property owned by the company. Spokesmen for owners of Utah mine property reported that the decision of the government will j result almost immediately in a j "tremendous increase" in metal mine production throughout the west. A. S. Brown, chairman of the Utah department of publicity and industrial development, who was informed of the decision by Samuel O. Clark, assistant United Unit-ed States attorney general said that "there are numerous mine owners and many prospective lessees in Utah and the entire west who have been waiting -for such word. I look for a tremendous tremend-ous boost in production for the entire metal mines industry." Because of the tax money collected col-lected by the government on lessees, mining men have been hesitant to lease mining property, proper-ty, Mr. Brown pointed out. They have contended that lessees are employers, not employes, and therefore not subject to social security legislation. Litigation Ended Judge Johnson's decision could have been appealed to the Tenth circuit court and the case probably prob-ably would have been carried to the supreme court had the circuit cir-cuit court decided in favor of the government. The announcement of Monday officially ends the litigation and the decision of the Utah court is final, Mr. Brown said. Judge Johnson had decided in favor of the Combined Metals Reduction company on the grounds that the relation between the company and the men who were leasing the mines was that of lessor and lessee and not employer em-ployer and employe, and that the social security taxes were collected col-lected on the earnings of the lessees and not on the wages of employes. In reaching its decision, the department of justice acted upon the recommendation of the United Unit-ed States bureau of internal revenue, re-venue, which several weeks ago advised against any government appeal. The Utah court action was similar sim-ilar to a decision handed down by the federal district court of California previously, Mr. Brown said. Mr. Brown wired department of justice officials 10 days ago, asking them to rush their decision decis-ion on whether to appeal the case, because "the entire industry indus-try waits your action." He pointed point-ed out that 47 per cent of the people of Utah derive their livelihood live-lihood from the mining industry and said vast expansion could be effected as soon as the litigation litiga-tion was settled. He also emphasized the necessity neces-sity of increasing metal production produc-tion for war industries, and maintained main-tained that the question involved involv-ed was the last remaining barrier bar-rier to extensive development of western mining lands. ! Or Monday, Mr. Brown again appealed to the department for us decision on making an appeal, j'id the wire from Mr- Clark arrived ar-rived a few hours later. In tne early stages of the controversy, con-troversy, it was found that Ltah and federal law differed on the status of lessees, the Utah law holding that they were ernploy-! ernploy-! Cs At the last session of the leg-I leg-I islature, however, the employer-i employer-i employe relationship was placed j on a common law basis, thus re-'movin re-'movin the discrepancy between 1 state and federal law on the issue. ; O |