V% for Victory

Something new was deducted from the nation's paychecks last week: the 5% "victory tax" invented by Congress as a compromise approach to forced savings, sales taxes and still higher income taxes.

The tax must be withheld by employers on all earnings over $12 a week. (Farm hands and domestic workers will not have the tax deducted, but must settle with the Treasury next year.) It will cast the first income-tax cloud over many a new-rich war worker: an estimated 49,000,000 persons will have to pay it. But for all taxpayers, it has a silver lining of which few are yet aware.

Part of the tax--ranging from one-fourth for single persons to one-half for a married man with five children--is regarded as forced savings to be refunded after the war. But this "postwar" rebate can be used at any time to buy war bonds, pay off old debts or meet insurance premiums. The method: deduct it from income taxes due in March, 1944. Since most taxpayers are buying war bonds or paying for insurance, they can thus regard the post-war refund as an advance payment on next year's income tax.

A table of victory taxes and the amount which the taxpayers will get back:

Gross Income Victory Tax Post-war single Credit Married Two Children $ 1,000 $ 18 $ 4 $ 8 3,000 118 29 52 5,000 218 54 96 7,500 343 85 151 10,000 468 117 206 15,000 718 179 316 20,000 968 242 426 30,000 1,468 367 646 50,000 2,468 500 1,086

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