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Show j , Garn from (0' V Washington . . ySjjJm j By Jake Garn I I have recived many letters I in the past few weeks from I Utahns who are concerned about the report that the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would like to tax employees' fringe benefits. There are major problems with this proposal. . First of all, the IRS would be seriously overstepping its bounds by trying to change existing tax policy without consulting Congress. It is Congress' Constitutional duty to alter taxation. Secondly, it is not feasible to levy a money tax on a nonmoney benefit. To do so would mean that the tax rate on wages and salaries would have to be raised. Almost everyone receives some sort of fringe benefit through his employer. Those that the IRS would like to tax include subsidized lunch programs, retail store employee discounts, dis-counts, railroad and airline passes, free parking and numerous num-erous benefits in union contracts. con-tracts. The Commissioner of the IRS stated that "economic benefits that are received as a result of employment are taxable." For example, if e-quivalent e-quivalent commercial parking costs $100 a month, he says, then the employee who gets free parking is realizing income, in-come, of $100 a month, and should be taxed for that benefit. Certainly, an employee em-ployee with a parking space is not realizing $100 a month, he is simply realizing a place to park his car. The average taxpayer does not have extra money to pay for these benefits. bene-fits. Thirdly, the logistics of taxing nonmoney income are overwhelming. It would mean each tax payer would have to calculate the value of each benefit and pay taxes on it. There would be a tremendous impact on the bureaucracy. The IRS would have to hire hundreds of people whose sole purpose would be to determine deter-mine the worth of parking facilities offered in different cities and neighborhoods so that people could be properly ! taxed for the benefit. Parking i I benefits, of course, are just an ktj example. Pp As a result of this IRS frjj proposal, I have joined in t sponsoring a Senate Resolu- r$ tion that expresses the Sen- Ij ate's "displeasure toward any K policy of the IRS which chan- ges through administrative jjj interpretation long-standing V, applications of internal reve- J nue laws." It appears to me W that taxing fringe benefits h amounts to nothing more than $ another tax increase when what is needed are tax cuts. It rjj is time for the Congress to W move toward government u, spending controls and lower & taxes. We must start reject- R ing proposals, such as the u. taxing of fringe benefits, I which would only increase f them. 1 |