Refund, Period

Hamstrung by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's refusal to appear before it. the Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections issued a report (TIME, Jan. 12, 1953) that made no specific charges, but asked questions about Joe's federal tax payments. The Internal Revenue Service began an investigation, and last year the Washington Star bannered: MCCARTHY

OWES $25,OOO BACK TAXES AND INTEREST, REVENUE AGENTS CLAIM. Last week McCarthy called a press conference. Its purpose: to flourish a Treasury tax-refund check for $1,056.75.

The check was the result of an IRS probe covering the years 1946-52. Asked for a year-by-year summary of the findings, McCarthy replied tartly: "The breakdown is that they found I had paid too much over a period of seven years, that I had reported everything accurately, that I did not take all the deductions I was entitled to take . . . That is all the breakdown I can give you on it. Period."

The period was only a comma, however, for Joe had in mind something other than merely parading his fiscal virtue: apologies from the question-asking Hennings subcommittee and from the Watkins censure committee. It would follow, he thought, that the whole Senate should take back its censure action.

McCarthy was not likely to receive such vindication. The Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections had been forced to ask questions only because Joe would supply none of the answers. And Senator Arthur Watkins brusquely pointed out that Joe's censure had had nothing at all to do with Joe's tax affairs. Said Watkins: "He has not been purged of contempt. No apologies are in order."

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