New Year's Turkey

In a homey, handsome dining room at the Treasury Department, with a cheery fire on the hearth, hospitable Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. entertained guests at lunch: grey-haired Senator Walter F. George of Georgia, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and big, bald Representative Robert L. ("Muley") Doughton of North Carolina, chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. They were talking taxes.

Last month, when Mr. Morgenthau asked Chairman George and Chairman Doughton to start work on a new tax bill for 1942 to raise another $4,800,000,0000, both gentlemen balked. But that was before the U.S. found itself at war. George & Doughton were ready to talk turkey.

Hearings on the tax bill are scheduled to start around Jan. 15, said Chairman Doughton as, pleasantly stuffed with Mr. Morgenthau's good food, he left the Treasury. The delay is to give the President time to submit a new budget.

The turkey that Mr. Morgenthau and his luncheon guests expect to cut so soon after the New Year will probably include a far meatier excess-profits tax, fatter taxes on corporation incomes, higher personal-income taxes. It might include the 15% withholding tax on salaries that Mr. Morgenthau wanted last month, increased Social Security taxes, compulsory joint returns for husbands & wives. It will probably be at least $5 billion bigger than 1941's bill.

Whatever the Treasury wants on next year's war taxes, said Chairman George, the Treasury shall have, so long as it does not hinder wartime production. Mr. Morgenthau's little lunch had been a very successful party.

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