170 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



thought we would pay this tax under protest, and then later on to 

 have this money refunded. If you fellows ge: by. we will probably 

 get ours back, and I hope you get by. 



Mr. Norton: We were notified about two days before the fair 

 gates opened that we were liable for the tax to the grandstand. 

 Xow, the revenue man. brought out the book and showed me the law. 

 Like our president. I have had some experience in the income tax 

 department and believe me when the internal revenue man speaks 

 there is only one interpretation to put upon the revenue man's ver- 

 sion, and that is to comply with the law. Our instructions are. if 

 you ever have had business with the government, or if you think 

 that you have any personal pull, you will have to throw it aside, for 

 that law is binding until it is reversed by higher authority-. I believe 

 in reading that law. I am not a lawyer and I don't claim to be able 

 to interpret any law intelligently, but it is apparently mis-worded, 

 it is not clear, but in all instances the government gets the benefit 

 of the doubt, and I am firmly convinced that you gentlemen who 

 have not paid the income tax wUl be penalized at least 50%. It 

 cost us for our grandstand admissions alone for afternoon and 

 evenings $1,465.68. That money has been forwarded to Louis 

 Murphy, and I feel that we have done the right thing, have used 

 good business judgment in forwarding it to him. because when they 

 speak, now. gentlemen, it is final. I understand that before this law 

 was put into eflFect a number of revenue men met here in Des Moines 

 and received that interpretation. Xow, they tried to tell me that 

 some man do\s-n here, the secretary- of some show man*? league in 

 Lincoln. Nebraska, had said that you didn't have to pay it. but 

 I believe you do. and the best thing is to be square with the collector. 

 If you have been notified and have not paid them, of course being 

 an entirely new matter they may be lenient with you. but that is a 

 question for this association, and my honest opinion is that it should 

 be thoroly discussed. I do not believe that it is a just tax. It is 

 absolutely impossible to run a fair imless you have a horse race. 

 the two are S}Tion\Tnous. and in racing horses that also produces 

 the object of having it. for the object is to produce better stock. 

 which is the primary object of a fair, and I don't believe we should 

 be penalized for it. I think that the average man who is not clothed 

 with som.e legal knowledge can put his interpretation on a law as 

 well as a man who has an official appointment, but the man who has 

 an official apoointment is the man we e^o bv. The revenue 

 department has at times reversed itself, and when the matter is 



