Furbishing

The Ways and Means Committee continued last week to polish the tax reduction measure which it is preparing for the House when it meets on Dec. 7. Three points chiefly were decided last week:

1) A tax of one mill a gallon is to be placed on the manufacture of near-beer and other cereal beverages. The tax was written into the bill at the request of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Lincoln C. Andrews, in order to enable him to have constant control and inspection of near-beer breweries to prevent them from selling high-power beer.

2) A number of salary increases in the Internal Revenue Bureau were made. Sometimes the Treasury has been obliged to send $4,000-a-year men into court to fight lawyers receiving $50,000 for a single case. The Solicitor of Internal Revenue was made "General Counsel" with a salary of $10,000 instead of $6,000. The salaries of members of the Board of Tax Appeals were likewise increased from $7,500 to $10,000.

3) It was agreed with only two or three dissenting votes that the estate taxes prevailing during the past year should be abolished retroactively. The maximum estate tax until June, 1924, was 25%, and since then it has been 40% (TIME, June 2, 1924.) Under the new bill it is to be 20%. It was argued that it was unfair to assess unusually high estate taxes against those who happened to die in the last two years, when taxes before that were lower and are now to be lower. So the 25% maximum rates were restored until the new bill becomes effective. Estate taxes are collected over a comparatively long period--up to five years--and therefore it is expected that the loss in revenue will be spread out over several shears. One of the questions remaining to be decided last week was what is to be the tax on theatre admissions. A sub-committee proposed to retain the tax except on the legitimate drama, which it is felt can least afford to bear the tax. But trouble was encountered in defining "legitimate drama." Finally the following tentative definition was drawn:

"Exclusively a spoken drama, termed legitimate drama or standard drama, as distinguished from ephemeral productions such as farce comedies, burlesques and extravaganzas; said legitimate or spoken drama further defined as a play which is consecutive narrative interpreted by one set of characters, all necessary to the development of the plot, the presentation of which consumes more than one hour and 45 minutes of time, the same being a dramatic work in consecutive narrative form, reproduced and presented by animate actors portraying the roles and repeating the lines of the dramatic work, and regardless of whether such presentation is with or without musical parts or musical accompaniment."

It was not proposed however to lift the tax on tickets sold by scalpers.