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Show Social Security Taxes And Practices Discussed By Accountant BY FRANK HOLLAND Public Accountant The Social Security Act, was passed pas-sed by the 74th Congress and was signed by the President on August 14, 1935. The Act was a direct legislative effort to provide systematic syste-matic aid to workers, needy adults and children. This aid was provided pro-vided through the medium of old age benefit payments to retired workers, unemployment compensation compen-sation to idle employees, and federal grants to states to establish esta-blish public health assistance and welfare programs. On August 10, 1939 the President Presi-dent signed amendments which liberalized the original Social Security program initiated by the Act, extending the benefits to wage earner's dependents, wives, children and survivors of subject employees. Congress also extended unemployment compensation coverage to new groups of workers and liberalized the federal grants to states to encourage the extension of their public assistance, assist-ance, health, and welfare activities. activi-ties. One of the provisions of the Social Security Act is for the establishment of a Social Security Board. The President appoints the three Board members, generally for a term of six years. The Board is required to perform per-form the various administrative functions set forth in the Act. including the original approval (Continued on page five) j Social Security Taxes (Continued from first page) and annual certification of the several state unemployment compensation com-pensation laws so that administrative administra-tive funds may be granted to the states by the treasury department. depart-ment. The Board must likewise adopt regulations concerning the nature and extent of proofs to establish rights to benefits and to certify the persons entitled to receive old-age and survivor's benefits, and the amount and the time of such payments. It is the duty of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which is a division of the United States-Treasury, States-Treasury, to collect the various taxes imposed by the Act. The Treasury is also required to maintain main-tain a special "Federal Old Age and Survivor's Insurance Trust Fund" from which it will pay old age and survivors' benefits unpon certification by the Social Security Board. The Treasury Department further is required to establish an "Unemployment Trust Fund" in which will be deposited and safeguarded all money collected by the various states for unemployment unem-ployment and compensation purposes. pur-poses. The amounts in this fund in reality belong to the several states. The Secretary of the Treasury Trea-sury is authorized to pay out to any state such amounts as it may duly requisition for unemployment compensation benefits, not exceeding exceed-ing the amount standing to the credit of the state agency at the time of such payment. The next of these series of articles will explain how the taxes for the various benefits are levied, who is taxable and to what extent. |