TAXES: How Not to Write a Tax Bill

Last week the most mismanaged bill of the 76th Congress passed the Senate. Few Senators understood it; none liked it. Neither did anybody else. The bill was an important one—an Excess Profits Tax Act. Last month Senator Pat Harrison, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the nearest thing to a friend the bill has, called it the "most intricate tax bill ever presented to Congress." At that time it was 96 pages long. By last week it had grown to 489 pages, weighed 1 Ib. 7 oz. without binding, and had progressed...