Trainman News

Elimination of Tax Favors Is Urged by AFL

WASHINGTON - President Truman has been called upon to keep after Congress for pay-as-you-go tax legislation that will lighten the burden on low-income taxpayers while recapturing $6 billion by "eliminating special tax advantages favoring certain classes of taxpayers."

Behind the move is the AFL and in a recent letter to the nation's chief executive William Green, AFL president, made known his union's stand on the matter.

"We assure you of our whole-hearted support in the promotion of these and all other measures directed at distributing the burden of supporting necessary government service more evenly in accordance with the ability-to-pay principle," Green wrote President Truman.

The AFL head urged President Truman to "make earnest recommendations to Congress that it recapture the $5 to $6 billion in additional revenue that could be so easily secured by eliminating special tax advantages favoring certain classes of taxpayers."

The recapturing phase of its proposal could be carried out, the AFL maintains, by collecting an asserted $2.5 billion loss under the split-income provision, $0.3 billion by a withholding tax on dividends and interest, $0.7 billion by eliminating depletion allowances, $1.0 billion by integrating and revising estate and gift tax laws, and $0.75 billion by "closing various loopholes."

Green told Truman that "Congress has not only failed to vote tax increases sufficient to keep the budget in balance but has approved measures which are distinctly contrary to the 'equality of sacrifice' principle enunciated by you when you referred to the necessity of increased taxes in 1950."

He added that "It is our considered opinion that a balanced budget is essential in the present period of high employment, high prices and high profits. Moreover, whether it is necessary to levy taxes to provide additional funds over and above existing tax revenue or to correct glaring inequities that exist in present tax law we believe certain changes are urgently necessary in the revenue structure."

AFL officers and members, Green said in his letter to President Truman, "urge you to give highest priority in any tax recommendation you present to Congress in 1952 on ways and means of easing the tax burden of millions of Americans in the low-income groups, particularly those with income below $2,000 whose basic living standards have been so depressed by the tax policy adopted by Congress."