Ruml & Bumble

Anybody dozing at last week's Congressional tax hearings (an easy feat) might have picked up some startling impressions between cat naps. Testifying before the House Ways & Means Committee was the Treasury's neat, mild-mannered General Counsel Randolph Paul. In view of the Treasury's last-ditch opposition to the famed Ruml income tax plan, some of Mr. Paul's statements were enough to make anyone sit up. Said he:

> "... The present method of collecting the income tax payment has the basic defect that tax payments are not synchronized with the receipt of the income on which the tax is based. ... A suitable pay-as-you-go method will be of great assistance to millions of persons." (Point One of the Ruml plan: get taxpayers on a current basis by letting them pay 1943 taxes while they are earning 1943's income.)

> ". . . The payment of two years' taxes in one year would be a severe hardship, if not an impossibility. . . . Complete doubling up would undoubtedly be too harsh for some. . . ." (Point Two of the Ruml plan: taxpayers cannot afford to pay their 1943 taxes while they are still in hock to the Government, as under the present system, for taxes on 1942's income.)

> ". . . The cash receipts of the Treasury could be maintained even though the tax liability was forgiven." (Point Three of the Ruml plan: the only sensible way to start a pay-as-you-go system is to "turn the tax clock ahead" by 1) forgetting about taxes on 1942 income, 2) letting all payments made this year apply to 1943 income.)

What was this? Had Mr. Paul suffered a change of heart? Was he trying to sell the Ruml plan? Ah, no--he was arguing against it.

For Mr. Paul had a few other points, obscure to laymen, which made the Ruml plan obnoxious to him regardless of how many nice things he said about it in passing. His chief worry: forgetting about 1942 taxes would wipe out a $10,000,000,000 Treasury "asset." No, this "asset" was not on the Treasury books. No, the Treasury would not have the money until tax payments came in during the year. No, the Ruml plan would not reduce the Treasury's income this year by a single penny. But Mr. Paul was worried about his mysterious "asset" anyway.

Said one observer as the hearing ended: "I wonder if Mr. Paul ever tried living this year in a house that will be built next year."

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