Show U 0 COMPLEX TAX PROBLEMS ed d note in drew pearsons absence fred IIII 1111 vinson s secretary e c of the treasury contributes c t ib a guest column on one of the most important problems of the treasury tax evasion drew pearson has offered me his washington merry go round column to present any sube subject ct LIZ of interest ill to the treasury department and to the american people I 1 know of no subject of more immediate concern than the treas campaign against tax evasion here in a nutshell is the situation the treasury faces in 1940 there were individual taxpayers today there are more than in an effort to LU handle the vastly increased task of processing returns 10 and collecting taxes I 1 I 1 the personnel of the bureau of internal revenue was increased from about to about with the mandow fred vinson er shortage the bureau could not expect to increase its forces proportionately tiona tely with the number of and in many respects bu reau employees found their work increased out of proportion to the number of returns under the withholding program a large part of the work formerly done by the taxpayer is now done in the bureau the processing of wartime tax relief provisions also threw much additional work upon the bureau under these conditions the normal investigative work of the bureau inevitably suffered the bureau has always proceeded upon the theory that the average american is honest and that a small but efficient force could 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 civilian goods and services would cheat the rest of us no city however small can afford to be without a police force and no city which has experienced a population increase of more than ten fold 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 enforced mt group protecting the governments interest in taxes and at the same time protecting the honest taxpayer against the black market operator the racketeer and every other kind of tax evader and it will be good business too we expect to collect 20 for every one spent when taxes are evaded the honest taxpayer loses since every dollar evaded increases by that much the burden borne br other taxpayers in many cases the honest taxpayer has especial reason to welcome the tax evasion campaign A reputable furrier or jeweler for instance could not continue in business if a next nest door competitor should be permitted to sell furs or jew elry without collecting excise taxes any business firm which cheats the government by fail ing to pay for the services which government provides is engaged in dishonest competition just as much as if it cheated the land lord out of his rent or workers worker out of their pay taxes are high but they must be collected fairly and so long as any substantial portion of the taxes due Kvil remains lail is uncollected it operates to defer the reduction of tax rates much more than ex expedience p directs this tax evasion campaign fundamental morality is involved the man who evades taxes picks his nei neighbors pocket t and in these times when 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 the black market operators or any other ather racketeers to be in a favored class when the men in the armed forces and our citizens generally are sacrificing so heavily my readers may say all right tax evasion is indefensible how bad is it what arr you doing about it the answers to trie the two questions 9 go 0 together the treasury is gathering from many sources anfor information ma that will give the entire picture of tax evasion that same information will serve as evidence to bring tax evaders evanders to justice the treasury is enlarging its investigating forces as I 1 have noted to handle a tremendous backlog of fraud cases accumulated during recent years and the cases now piling in |