Draft age cut will be asked by Roosevelt
Radio talk to touch on manpower issue and second front
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Save old stockings
Washington –
Women today were urged to save their worn or discarded silk and nylon hosiery for use in the manufacture of gunpowder bags. The War Production Board said it would soon announce arrangements for collecting the stockings.
Final action on big tax bill believed near
Treasury prepares new revenue plans’ major problems remain
Washington (UP) –
The long-debated $8-billion bill was near enactment today, but Congressmen and tax experts agreed that the really tough tax problems had been left for the next tax bill which the Treasury is preparing.
House acceptance of the Senate’s 5% victory tax, levied on the earnings of all who make more than $12 a week, was forecast as Senate-House conferees prepared to adjust differences over the pending bill.
Chairman Walter F. George (D-GA) of the Senate Finance Committee said he hoped to start conferences with the House tomorrow and complete work this week on the history-making measure.
Victory tax debate due
Chairman Robert L. Doughton (D-NC) of the House Ways and Means Committee indicated that it was a question of accepting the Senate’s victory tax – designed to raise $3,650,000,000 annually – or finding the lost revenue elsewhere, with no apparent place to turn but a sales tax, which neither House has approved.
The Senate passed the bill Saturday, 77–0, but left several important questions for the next tax bill which Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. has announced will follow immediately.
Five problems remain
Those problems include:
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Compulsory savings. The pending bill creates a committee to study the problem and recommend legislation, which will have to be dovetailed with taxes.
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The Treasury’s “spendings” tax, involving the compulsory saving s principle, which the Treasury has indicated it would renew in the next bill.
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Social Security taxes. Although the Senate overrode President Roosevelt’s wishes by freezing the old age benefit tax at 1% on employer and 1% on employee for 1943, the President gave notice that he would ask for “substantial increases” after disposal of the pending bill.
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Sales tax. Advocates of this type of levy assert it is “absolutely inevitable” in any new revenue bill because all other sources have about reached the point of diminishing returns.
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Percentage depletion for oil and gas wells. Those oppressed to the $124-million “loophole” in the tax laws have promised to renew the fight at the first opportunity.
Aside from the victory tax, which is a super levy imposed on top of increased normal and surtax rates for individuals, there is no difference in the other individual rates between Senate and House. In individual exemptions, however, the Senate voted $300 for each dependent while the House voted $400.
The main difference in the corporation rates of the two bills is that the House provides a combined normal and surtax rate of 45% and the Senate 40%. The Senate provides a 10% post-war credit against excess profits taxes paid, which is lacking in the House bill.
VFW leader dies
Detroit, Michigan –
William J. Corbett, 71, leader in the Veterans of Foreign Wars, died yesterday after a heart attack. He once sold eight million copies of the book America, to raise funds for erection of the VFW national house at Evanston, Illinois.
U.S. loses initial round in fight against Petrillo
Federal judge rules ban on recordings is merely dispute between employers, employees
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32 U.S. fliers decorated
Gen. MacArthur’s HQ, somewhere in Australia –
Maj. Gen. George C. Kenney, U.S. air chief for the Southwest Pacific Area, today awarded silver stars for gallantry to 32 men, most of them fighter pilots.
Supreme Court grants review in fraud case
Judgment of $315,100 against electrical contractor involved
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