Banning Censorship By Taxation

Banning Censorship By Taxation

Last June the Hot^se Ways and Means Committee approved a bill to permit the cost of lobbying to be deducted from taxable income. This measure, if it becomes law, would reverse a Treasury Department ruling holding that deductions of this nature are net a necessary and legitimate business expense, and hence are not allowable.

In the words of a UPI news report, “Under the bill, business men could deduct from gross income the cost of influencing action by Congress or by state or other legislatures or influencing action by the voters on proposals submitted to them. The deductions could be claimed as long as the expenses qualified under the test of existing law as ‘ordinary and necessary’ to the conduct of business.”

It is difficult to see how the Committee could have taken any other action. The Treasury was held that the cost of advertising dealing with legislative proposals or designed to influence the public’s attitude toward these proposals “is not deductable as a business expense, even though the legislation may directly affect the taxpayer’s business.” This means, in certain instances, that an industry may not defend itself against movements wihch would destroy it, save by paying a heavy tax penalty. The light and power utilities are an outstanding example. Through advertising and in other open and legal ways they have opposed socialized power. This, to them, is literally a life and death matter. And if advertising designed to save them from extinction isn’t a legitimate business expense what is? The bill which the Committee approved finally is designed to ban censorship by taxation. That kind of censorship is repellent to every American ideal and principle.

The editorial above appeared in the September 22 issue of the Southwest;VirginiaEnterprise and was chosen by the Farm Bureau as a winning editorial based on freedom and liberty.