Excerpt from Revenue Act of 1935: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance United States Senate, Seventy-Fourth Congress, First Session on H. R. 8974, an Act to Provide Revenue, Equalize Taxation and for Other Purposes, July 30, 31, August 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8, 1935 The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m., in the Finance Committee room, Senate Office Building, Senator Pat Harrison (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Harrison (chairman), King, Walsh, Connally, Gore, Costigan, Byrd, Gerry, Guffey, LaFollette, and Capper. The Chairman. The Senators have before them a copy of the bill that was introduced yesterday by Congressman Doughton and it was reported out, I understand, this morning. We have had some requests for hearings. I haven't felt like we ought to bring people here until they saw a copy of this bill, so we will have the witnesses in the morning. Statement of L. H. Parker, Chief of Staff, Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation The Chairman. Mr. Parker, will you just briefly give us an explanation of this bill now? I wish that you would at the same time differentiate between what has been done in the introduction of the bill and the President's suggestions in his message. In other words, what more have they done than the President suggested be done in his message? To the Congress of the United States: As the fiscal year draws to its close it becomes our duty to consider the broad question of tax methods and policies. I wish to acknowledge the timely efforts of the Congress to lay the basis through its committees for administrative improvements, by careful study of the revenue systems of our own and of other countries. These studies have made it very clear that we need to simplify and clarify our revenue laws. The Joint Legislative Committee, established by the Revenue Act of 1926, has been particularly helpful to the Treasury Department. The members of that committee have generously consulted with administrative officials, not only on broad questions of policy but on important and difficult tax cases. On the basis of these studies and of other studies conducted by officials of the Treasury, I am able to make a number of suggestions of important changes in our policy of taxation. These are based on the broad principle that if a government is to be prudent its taxes must produce ample revenues without discouraging enterprise; and if it is to be just it must distribute the burden of taxes equitably. I do not believe that our present system of taxation completely meets this test. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.