Show U COMPLEX TAX PROBLEMS ed botein note in drew pearsons absence fred M vlas vinson on see secretary of the treasury contributes a guest column on ono one of the most important problem lemi of tire the treasury tax evasion drew pearson has offered me his washington merry go round column to present any subject of interest to the treasury department and to the american people I 1 know of no subject of more immediate concern than the trea surya campaign am against tax evasion here in a nutshell Is the situation the treasury faces in 1840 1040 there were individual taxpayers today there are more than in an effort to handle the vastly increased task of Z processing returns 4 14 and collecting taxes the personnel of the bureau of internal revenue was increased from about s to about with the manpower fred vinson shortage the bureau could not e ex hect to increase its forces proportionately tiona tely with the number ol of taxpayers and in many respects bureau employees found their work increased out of proportion to the number of returns under the tha withholding program a large part of tits tha work formerly done by the taxpayer IS IB now done in the bureau the processing of wartime tax relief relict provisions also threw much additional work upon the bureau under these thega conditions the normal investigative 1 work of the bureau inevitably v SU suffered f the bureau has always proceeded upon the theory that the average american Is honest and that aspinall a small but efficient force could devil deal with the dishonest but millions of us are now taxpayers and the honest must be protected against those among us who tempted by war swollen incomes and shortages in goods and services would cheat the rest of us no A city however small can afford to be without a police force arid and no city which has experienced a population increase of more than tenfold in a five year period would think of trying to get along without enlarging its law enforcement groups that Is why the treasury Is building up its investigative forces our object is to recruit and train men this will be no gestapo it will be a taxpayers law enforcement group protecting the governments interest la terest in taxes and at the some same time protecting the honest taxpayer against the black market operator the racketeer arid and every other kind of tax eva evader der and it will be good business too we expect to collect 20 tor for every one spent when taxes are evaded the honest taxpayer loses since every dollar evaded increases by that much the burden borne by other taxpayers in many cases the honest taxpayer has especial reason to welcome the tax evasion camp aien aign A reputable furrier or jeweler for instance could not continue in business it if a next door competitor should be permitted to sell furs or jewelry without collecting excise taxes any business inn w emch hach cheats the government by falling to pay for the he services which government provides Is engaged en in id dishonest competition just as much as tf if it cheated the landlord out of his rent or workers out of their pay taxes are high but they must be collected d f fairly and so long as any substantial portion of the taxes due remains uncollected it operates to defer the reduction of tax rates much more than expedience directs this tax evasion campaign fundamental morality is involved the man who evades taxes picks his neighbors racket and in these times when we are asking so much from the men in uniform any pocket picking at their expense becomes unthinkable As president truman has said we are not fighting this war to make millionaires and certainly we are not going to allow th the black ma market arket operators or any other racketeers to be in a favored class when the iho men in the armed forces and our citizens generally are sacrificing so heavily my readers mi may 7 say any all right tax evasion Is indefensible how bad to 13 it what are you doing ab about out it the answers to the two questions go together the treasury Is gathering from many sources information that will give the entire picture of tax evasion that same information ln alon will sarve as evidence to bring tax evaders evanders to justice the treasury Is enlarging its investigating forces as I 1 have noted to hardle a tremendous backlog of fraud cases icca acau mutated during recent years year and the cases now piling in |