Message from the Chair

By Betty J. Williams

Do Our Tax Laws Make Us Dishonest?

Along the corridors in my office are dozens of framed Saturday Evening Post cardboard covers my father collected in the 1950s. His grandfather owned the town drug store in Calumet, a small town in the upper peninsula of Michigan, from 1900 until his death in 1969. Each Saturday when the Post was delivered, it came with a cardboard replica of the cover for store owners to place in the window as advertisement for the weekly publication. When the time came to clean out the family home a decade ago, I was the fortunate recipient of business machines that date back to the 1920s, an old-fashioned pin-ball machine, and other conversation pieces that adorn our conference rooms. My father also shared many of the Post covers, one of which reminds me that the challenges associated with paying income tax are not new, and the temptation to file a dishonest tax return is longstanding.

The title of the feature story headlining this particular Post of 1956 reads, "Our Tax Laws Makes Us Dishonest" by Cameron Hawley, pulled from a 444-page novel he wrote. The feature photo shows a couple entering a hotel room and as the wife looks joyously out the window at the Eiffel Tower, the husband appears dismayed as he carefully studies the room charges.