War Revenue and Federal Income Tax Laws

Part I contains the text of the War Revenue Act as approved by the President on October 3, 1917.

Part II contains the text of the Federal Income Tax Law of September 8, 1916, with the amendments of the Act of October 3, 1917, together with the supplementary provisions of the War Income Tax Law and other pertinent sections of the War Revenue Act of October 3, 1917.

FOREWORD

The purpose of the National Bank of Commerce in New York in preparing this book is to provide for its friends and customers, in as usable a form as possible, an authoritative text of the Federal Revenue laws which most vitally concern the business and banking world. These laws are contained in the War Revenue Act, approved October 3, 1917, and in the newly amended Income Tax Law of September 8, 1916. The bank has therefore combined the two laws in this book, in a form which will enable the reader readily to determine his taxable status from an authoritative source.

PART I of the book contains the War Revenue Act, as approved by the President on October 3, 1917. The importance of this Act to the commercial and financial world can hardly be over-emphasized. Drawn for the purpose of providing funds for the prosecution of the War, it is calculated to raise for 1917, in addition to ordinary revenues, about $2,600,000,000.

Consideration of the Act by Congress has been long. As it now stands, the measure is a compromise of the views of numerous factions and interests-between those who advocate the "pay as you go" policy and those who favor reliance on bond issues as a policy of war finances -between those who demand the "conscription of wealth" and those who are alarmed at the danger of "frightening capital."

Of the taxes imposed by the War Revenue Act, by far the most important are the War Income Tax and the War Profits Tax, which are calculated to raise, respectively, about $842,000,000 and $1,060,000,000.