Show SEEN HEARD around the national capital r by CARTER FIELDS sa washington A definite program for new taxation to be recommended to congress in january Is being worked out by experts in tile the treasury department despite the bland assurance of sena tor pat harrlson harrison of mississippi chairman of tile the senate finance committee that no now new taxes will be needed in fact the program with few exceptions Is almost frozen already ready nl the hie goal Is half a billion dollars more revenue annually or at least until tile the present need passes it will be recalled that president roosevelt pointed out months ago that it was tile the drought relief cost estimated then at that upset his budget balancing program one of the striking features of the new tax program Is a new excess profits tux tax graduated on much tile the same I 1 line ine as the income tax brackets so that it will lilt hit the big profit makers harder than those corporations making smaller profits this of course will bo be in addition to the already very heavy avy corporation income taxes an interesting feature of this pro dosal Is the theory behind it involve ing regulation by the government of business prices labor costs and profits not long after the war the government deliberately scrapped tho the then existing excess profits tax tat which had been imposed with a view to getting at war profiteers it had been thought too difficult and time wasting in the rush of war preparation to battle too much over prices paid for 0 this tax was devised with a view of catching any contractors or manufacturers who made too much money as a result of this more or less openhanded open handed buying by the government but after the war it was discovered in very careful cageful investigations made under the direction of senator arthur capper of kansas that the thing just work the way it had been in tended especially when the ordinary citizen and not the government was the buyer it was found that prices were pyramided pyra to include the excess profits tax and still give the seller on en too large a profit so the ta tax was repealed now it Is to be reinstated reinstate but with the conviction that government regula tion lion will prevent any such results to cut exemptions another provision of the new tax program the writer learns would re duce the arese prese present at exemptions for mar ried persons from 2500 to 2000 and for single persons from 1500 to 1 I 1 still another Is a sharp raise in rates on tile the lower income brackets tile rates on the higher brackets hav ing already been stepped up consider ably from the low to which they had been reduced under the mellon regime in fact practically bick back to war levels this new tax on the lower middle classes as it was called by ba a sena tor who learned about the program by accident Is natto apt to produce a real tight light in congress unless president roosevelt cracks the whip too hard it Is the one detail of the plan that may find rocks locks ahead in tile the private views even of tile the experts framing it for it Is not regarded as particularly good politics however sound may be the economics there are too many voters in these claset classifications flea eions incidentally some of the old leads heads in the revenue service always ha have v e contended that the difficulty and ex pense of collection in the very low brackets did not ninke make up for the bur den imposed taxation on corporation surpluses Is another feature of the proposed pro gram this Is an old hobby hobba of the president lie ile indicated indicate his thoughts on this subject as aarback far back as in his acceptance speech before the chicago convention and ins has made frequent references to it since lie ile believes that this piled up sur plus was very close to the genesis of the depression had it been paid out in wages in reduced prices or even in dividends it would have produced produce greater buying bus ing power lie he lias has pointed out G 0 P hopes in new york with the jim parley farley vincent dally upstate new york machine function ing in every precinct republican so se cret canvases do not reveal a pros hect of gaining more than three seats in the house this fall in fit the empire state tills this despite the alie fact that the dom now hold 29 of the stil states tes seats in the national house and tile the I 1 leans only 10 while details are not made public naturally enough of the particular pots where tile the republicans hope to make aliese thes ethree three gains probability Is that two of them are the seats at large and the third Is the seventeenth district in new york city once depre dented by ogden mills and later by ruth nuth pratt but which the democrats captured in the roosevelt landslide there Is excellent reason for be lieving the republicans can win the seventeenth district back it happens I 1 to be the richest district in america more afore securities jn in corporations whose profits may be threatened by the new deal are held there than in fr most states moreover there Is the fact that the old and famous upstate Is no longer the republican gibraltar it use used to be for one thing parley farley and dally organized it back in the 1030 elec ele c lion when roosevelt was elected gov A H bornor and started on the road to the P residency presidency the days of half a million and more majority in now new york city being wiped out by a republican sweep of the upstate apparently are gone forever of high Irn importance which raises the point what has happened to tho republican party in new york the question Is of enormous interest in washington because of its effect on tile tho house of representatives even in this oft off year ono one of the reasons why no republican has been so optimistic at any time since last spring to claim that the republicans might capture the house of representatives in this election Is that every well ft ell informed republican realizes that no substantial gain can be counted on from new york state which Is rather amazing when one looks back just a few years it would seem scent that something happened to the new york 0 0 P along about 1921 that year marks the dividing line the 1020 election which was the larding landslide marked the high tide of republican members to the house from now new york the 1010 election had resulted in the delegation being composed of 10 democrats 20 republican had and I 1 socialist there was vas a republican gain in 1918 and then in 1920 1020 tile republicans elected 33 the democrats a bare 0 band and tile the socialists 1 but that was not only ly tl th tide it was as the lie last time tile thea t ed a majority of the nt r gation gallon in 1922 1022 alie the democrats went into the lead with 22 to 21 so if the elder la follette had won enough electoral votes in 1024 to have thrown the election of a president into the house new york which had cast nearly a million majority for coolidge would have been recorded for danisl curiously enough even this tremendous coolidge majority did not pull through enough republicans to give them a majority of the delegation the democrats held their 22 in that election and the republicans lost one with one socialist elected nor did the hoover landslide jar this democratic majority loose on the contrary the democrats gained one no rush for bonds nothing like the expected rush to convert liberty bonds into the new issue despite the bolt balt of a free months interest for prompt action followed the latest announcement of treasury rei sury financing it may be that the tha half billion dollars worth of bonds still held out will come in before october 15 the final date on which the tha outstanding bonds are called but me there Is considerable speculation us its to the motives actuating bondholders bond holders who at the moment seem to intend to demand cash on october 15 rather than take the new issue the surprising phase of the situation Is that the new bonds bear interest at SM per cent this Is 1 per cent less than the 41 L paid by the liberties being called of course but it is Is regarded as very high for government bonds especially in view of the uncertainty with respect to private investments and the eagerness of capital to find some investment which involves no risk no matter how small the return yet apparently unless holders of the outstanding liberties that were called are just procrastinating regardless gard less of the free interest intel est halt bait until october 15 a very large number of holders intend to take cash on october 15 rather than take the new government three and a quarters A washington professional man who recently sold a house taking all cash was thinking of investing the amount in a small apartment house on this of course lie he would have to borrow considerable additional capital within the ten days following the treasury announcement he was offered all the additional money he wanted to buy the apartment house by two different hanks banks the interest rate each bank asked was 5 per cent I 1 incidentally the offer of each bank was n as predicated on the idea of a five year mortgage not callable during that time yet ct with tile the provision that the borrower could make payments of any size lie desired on any interest date banks locren up in other words tile would be borrower was given all the advantage of any change in conditions if he found after a year or at the end of three years that lie could borrow money at 4 per cent he would be at liberty to make the new loan and pay off the mortgage whereas if interest rates should rise and the bank could easily mare make loans at 0 per cent the bank would not have the option of calling I 1 his loan this situation of the banks here anxious to make long term loans to individuals on good security at 5 15 per cent while government bonds do not seem to be in particular demand at per cent arouses considerable sid erable comment as to the whys ghys and wherefores for the one explanation given by governmental critics that people tare reluctant to buy government bonds because they are afraid of some wild in nation would seem to apply equally to long iong term private loans also it would seem to indicate that the banks are not anything like so tight with their money as some of the governmental agencies have bean bek n char charging ing in cases of course where no question of an overzealous nut national lonal bank bank examiner Is involved berries vloe r r 4 |