Carrizozo News

Pay Your Income Tax

"Tax slackers will be prosecuted as vigorously and relentlessly under the War Revenue Act as draft slackers were prosecuted under the selective service act.

The aid of all good citizens is invoked in bringing to justice the man who deliberately seeks to evade his just share of the war burden."

This was the statement to-day of Commissioner of Internal Revenue Daniel C. Roper. With only eight days left in which to file income tax returns he has practically completed the organization of a huge dragnet for bringing into camp all persons who fail to file their returns by April 1. Revenue officers in every section of the country are checking up returns with a view to beginning prosecutions against tax dodgers. The word has gone forth that such offenders need expect no leniency.

"Through its educational campaign the Bureau of Internal Revenue has endeavored to cover the field so thoroughly that ignorance of the law cannot be consistently offered as an excuse", said Commissioner Roper to-day.

The press, the four minute men, the State and County Councils of National Defense, the field force of the Department of Agriculture and other governments, banks, post-offices and hundreds of volunteer agencies have cooperated in bringing home to the taxpayer his duty.

"The man who failed to register under the selective service act was regarded by the War Department as a slacker and prosecuted as such. The man who fails to file his income tax will be regarded as a 'money slacker', and when discovered, as he will be, will be made to suffer full penalties of the law.

"To the credit of the Nation it may be said that I have gratifying and conclusive evidence that these income taxes will be paid by the great majority of the American people cheerfully and willingly. But the duty of the honest man does not end with the payment of his own tax. I call upon him to aid in bringing into camp the tax dodger. A man so niggardly as to seek to evade what his representatives in Congress have declared to be his just share of a tax imposed for the support of our arms is deserving of no consideration and will receive none.

"Congress has distributed this tax justly and equitably. The rate is fixed so that the rich man and the men of moderate means are assessed, each according to his income. No man can offer the excuse that his neighbor escapes what he is made to pay. Therefore, it is incumbent upon all good citizens to aid in carrying out the intent and spirit of the law, which is that the burden of the war tax be evenly distributed and every man compelled to pay his just quota."