The Ides of March (Now April)

It isn’t funny, this income tax business. In a few weeks almost every adult in the country will be tussling with some form, trying to find some loophole in the law through which to save a dollar or two from the clutches of the tax-collector, or taking a chance on tax evasion. In fact, for a whole year every American has been thinking of tax avoidance or tax evasion; it is a matter of constant concern, with us all the time, and engaging our interest far more than any other matter save, perhaps, our health. Tax avoidance or evasion is a serious business.

And yet C. Northcote Parkinson, in his new book, The Law and the Profits (Houghton, $3.50), manages to treat the subject of the income tax, of all taxes, with considerable humor. It is urbane humor, the kind that cuts deeply and leaves the advocate of high taxes without a leg to stand on. Even though the author predicts a decline of all the values we attach to civilization, as a result of confiscatory taxes, he does so with detachment.

FC

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Frank Chodorov

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It isn’t funny, this income tax business. In a few weeks almost every adult in the country will be tussling with some form, trying to find some loophole in the law through which to save a dollar or two from the clutches of the tax-collector, or taking a chance on tax evasion. In fact, for a whole year every American has been thinking of tax avoidance or tax evasion; it is a matter of constant concern, with us all the time, and engaging our interest far more than any other matter save, perhaps, our health. Tax avoidance or evasion is a serious business.

And yet C. Northcote Parkinson, in his new book, The Law and the Profits (Houghton, $3.50), manages to treat the subject of the income tax, of all taxes, with considerable humor. It is urbane humor, the kind that cuts deeply and leaves the advocate of high taxes without a leg to stand on. Even though the author predicts a decline of all the values we attach to civilization, as a result of confiscatory taxes, he does so with detachment.