Postwar Taxes

Report Outline
Proposals to Frame Postwar Texes Now
Tax Reduction After World Wax I
Current Proposals for Revision of Taxes
Special Focus

Proposals to Frame Postwar Texes Now

Early consideration by Congress of the tax structure to be maintained by the federal government after the war was recommended, Feb. 15, in the Baruch-Hancock report on reconversion policies. This proposal received prompt endorsement from spokesmen for trade and industry, and some support from members of Congress, but no move has since been made to carry it into effect.

Randolph Paul, former general counsel of the Treasury, has suggested the preparation now of alternative tax structures for the period of transition to a peace economy—one for use in case of inflation, the other for use in case of depression. Mayor LaGuardia recommends that a tax law to be kept in effect for five years after the war be framed now, so that business and industry may have clear knowledge of the burdens that will have to be borne during that period and can make plans to carry them.

In Randolph Paul's opinion, any expectation that the postwar tax structure will approximate that of the 1920's is “a beautiful pipe dream.” Emil Schram, president of the New York Stock Exchange, estimates that the postwar federal budget will be close to $20 billion, compared with $13 billion in the last fiscal year before the United States entered the war. Estimates of federal tax revenue for the fiscal year 1943–44 are in excess of $41 billion.