Chapter 3 The Federal Income

Tax I BEYOND A DOUBT, many prosperous and ostensibly intelligentAmericans have in recent years done things that to a na?veobserver might appear outlandish, if not actually lunatic. Men ofinherited wealth, some of them given to the denunciation ofgovernment in all its forms and manifestations¹, have shownthemselves to be passionately² interested in the financing of stateand municipal governments, and have contributed huge sumsto this end. Weddings between persons with very high incomesand persons with not so high incomes have tended to takeplace most often near the end of December and least oftenduring January. Some exceptionally successful people, especiallyin the arts, have been abruptly⁴ and urgently instructed by theirfinancial advisers⁶ to do no more gainful work under anycircumstances for the rest of the current calendar year, andhave followed this advice, even though it sometimes came asearly as May or June. Actors and other people with highincomes from personal services have again and again becomethe proprietors⁷ of sand-and-gravel businesses, bowling⁸ alleys,and telephone-answering services, doubtless adding a certainélan to the conduct of those humdrum¹⁰ establishments.
Motion-picture people, as if fulfilling a clockwork schedule ofrenunciation and reconciliation¹¹, have repeatedly abjured¹² theirnative soil in favor of foreign countries for periods of eighteenmonths—only to embrace it again in the nineteenth. Petroleuminvestors have peppered the earth of Texas with speculative¹⁵ oilwells, taking risks far beyond what would be dictated¹⁶ by normalbusiness judgment¹⁷. Businessmen travelling on planes, riding intaxis, or dining in restaurants have again and again been seencompulsively making entries in little notebooks that, if they werequestioned, they would describe as “diaries;” however, far frombeing spiritual descendants of Samuel Pepys or Philip Hone,they were writing down only what everything cost. And ownersand part owners of businesses have arranged to share theirownership with minor¹⁸ children, no matter how young; indeed,in at least one case of partnership¹⁹ agreement has been delayedpending the birth of one partner.
As hardly anyone needs to be told, all these odd actions aredirectly traceable to various provisions of the federal income-taxlaw. Since they deal with birth, marriage, work, and styles andplaces of living, they give some idea of the scope of the law’ssocial effects, but since they are confined to the affairs of thewell-to-do, they give no idea of the breadth of its economicimpact. Inasmuch as almost sixty-three million individual returnswere filed in a typical recent year—1964—it is not surprisingthat the income-tax law is often spoken of as the law of theland that most directly affects the most individuals, andinasmuch as income-tax collections account for almostthree-quarters of our government’s gross receipts, it isunderstandable that it is considered our most important singlefiscal measure. (Out of a gross from all sources of a hundredand twelve billion dollars for the fiscal²⁰ year that ended June30th, 1964, roughly fifty-four and a half billion came fromindividual income taxes and twenty-three and a third billionfrom corporation income taxes.) “In the popular mind, it isTHE TAX,” the economics professors William J. Shultz and C.
Lowell Harriss declare in their book “American Public Finance,”
and the writer David T. Bazelon has suggested that theeconomic effect of the tax has been so sweeping²¹ as to createtwo quite separate kinds of United States currency—before-taxmoney and after-tax money. At any rate, no corporation isever formed, nor are any corporation’s affairs conducted for asmuch as a single day, without the lavishing²² of earnestconsideration upon the income tax, and hardly anyone in anyincome group can get by without thinking of it occasionally,while some people, of course, have had their fortunes or theirreputations, or both, ruined as a result of their failure tocomply with it. As far afield as Venice, an American visitor afew years ago was jolted²⁴ to find on a brass²⁵ plaque²⁶ affixed²⁷ to acoin box for contributions to the maintenance fund of theBasilica of San Marco the words “Deductible for U.S.
Income-Tax Purposes.”
A good deal of the attention given to the income tax is basedon the proposition that the tax is neither logical nor equitable³⁰.
Probably the broadest and most serious charge is that the lawhas close to its heart something very much like a lie; that is, itprovides for taxing incomes at steeply progressive rates, andthen goes on to supply an array of escape hatches soconvenient that hardly anyone, no matter how rich, need paythe top rates or anything like them. For 1960, taxpayers³² withreportable incomes of between two hundred thousand and fivehundred thousand dollars paid, on the average, about 44 percent, and even those few who reported incomes of over amillion dollars paid well under 50 per cent—which happened tobe just about the percentage that a single taxpayer³¹ wassupposed to pay, and often did pay, if his income wasforty-two thousand dollars. Another frequently heard charge isthat the income tax is a serpent in the American Garden ofEden, offering such tempting³³ opportunities for petty evasion³⁴ thatit induces a national fall from grace every April. Still anotherschool of critics contends that because of its labyrinthine³⁵ quality(the basic statute³⁶, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, runs tomore than a thousand pages, and the court rulings andInternal Revenue Service regulations that elaborate it come toseventeen thousand) the income tax not only results in suchidiocies as gravel-producing actors and unborn partners but isin fact that anomaly, a law that a citizen may be unable tocomply with by himself. This situation, the critics declare, leadsto an undemocratic state of affairs, for only the rich can affordthe expensive professional advice necessary to minimize theirtaxes legally.
The income-tax law in toto has virtually no defenders³⁷, eventhough most fair-minded students of the subject agree that itseffect over the half century that it has been in force has beento bring about a huge and healthy redistribution of wealth.
When it comes to the income tax, we almost all want reform.
As reformers, however, we are largely powerless, the chiefreasons being the staggering complexity³⁸ of the whole subject,which causes many people’s minds to go blank at the verymention of it, and the specific, knowledgeable³⁹, and energeticadvocacy by small groups of the particular provisions theybenefit from. Like any tax law, ours had a kind of immunity⁴⁰ toreform; the very riches that people accumulate through the useof tax-avoidance devices can be—and constantly are—applied tofighting the elimination⁴² of those devices. Such influences,combined with the fierce demands made on the Treasury⁴³ bydefense spending and other rising costs of government (evenleaving aside hot wars like the one in Vietnam), have broughtabout two tendencies so marked that they have assumed theshape of a natural political law: In the United States it iscomparatively easy to raise tax rates and to introducetax-avoidance devices, and it is comparatively hard to lower taxrates and to eliminate tax-avoidance devices. Or so it seemeduntil 1964, when half of this natural law was spectacularlychallenged by legislation, originally proposed by PresidentKennedy and pushed forward by President Johnson, thatreduced the basic rates on individuals in two stages from abottom of 20 per cent to a bottom of 14 per cent and from atop of 91 per cent to a top of 70 per cent, and reduced thetop tax on corporations from 52 per cent to 48 per cent—allin all, by far the largest tax cut in our history. Meanwhile,however, the other half of the natural law remains⁴⁴ immaculate.
To be sure, the proposed tax changes advanced by PresidentKennedy included a program of substantial reforms to eliminatetax-avoidance devices, but so great was the outcry against thereforms that Kennedy himself soon abandoned most of them,and virtually none of them were enacted⁴⁶; on the contrary, thenew law actually extended or enlarged one or two of thedevices.
“Let’s face it, Clitus, we live in a tax era. Everything’s taxes,”
one lawyer says to another in Louis Auchincloss’s book ofshort stories called “Powers of Attorney,” and the secondlawyer, a traditionalist, can enter only a token demurrer.
Considering the omnipresence of the income tax in Americanlife, however, it is odd how rarely one encounters references toit in American fiction. This omission⁴⁷ probably reflects thesubject’s lack of literary elegance⁴⁸, but it may also reflect anational uneasiness about the income tax—a sense that we havewilled into existence, and cannot will out of existence, apresence not wholly good or wholly bad but, rather, soimmense, outrageous⁴⁹, and morally ambiguous that it cannot beencompassed by the imagination. How in the world, one mayask, did it all happen?
AN income tax can be truly effective only in an industrialcountry where there are many wage and salary earners, andthe annals of income taxation⁵⁰ up to the present century arecomparatively short and simple. The universal taxes of ancienttimes, like the one that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehemjust before the birth of Jesus, were invariably head taxes, withone fixed²⁸ sum to be paid by everybody, rather than incometaxes. Before about 1800, only two important attempts weremade to establish income taxes—one in Florence during thefifteenth century, and the other in France during the eighteenth.
Generally speaking, both represented efforts by grasping rulersto mulct their subjects. According to the foremost historian ofthe income tax, the late Edwin R. A. Seligman, the Florentineeffort withered⁵¹ away as a result of corrupt⁵² and inefficientadministration. The eighteenth-century French tax, in the wordsof the same authority, “soon became honeycombed withabuses” and degenerated⁵³ into “a completely unequal andthoroughly arbitrary imposition upon the less well-to-do classes,”
and, as such, it undoubtedly⁵⁴ played its part in whipping up themurderous fervor⁵⁵ that went into the French Revolution. Therate of the ancien-régime tax, which was enacted by LouisXIV in 1710, was 10 per cent, a figure that was cut in halflater, but not in time; the revolutionary regime eliminated thetax along with its perpetrators. In the face of this cautionaryexample, Britain enacted an income tax in 1798 to help financeher participation⁵⁶ in the French revolutionary wars, and this was,in several respects, the first modern income tax; for one thing,it had graduated rates, progressing from zero, on annualincomes under sixty pounds, to 10 per cent, on incomes oftwo hundred pounds or more, and, for another, it wascomplicated, containing a hundred and twenty-four sections,which took up a hundred and fifty-two pages. Its unpopularitywas general and instantaneous, and a spate⁵⁷ of pamphletsdenouncing it soon appeared; one pamphleteer, who purportedto be looking back at ancient barbarities from the year 2000,spoke of the income-tax collectors of old as “mercilessmercenaries” and “brutes … with all the rudeness that insolenceand self-important ignorance could suggest.” After yielding onlyabout six million pounds a year for three years—in large partbecause of widespread evasion—it was repealed⁵⁸ in 1802, afterthe Treaty of Amiens, but the following year, when the Britishtreasury again found itself in straitened circumstances,Parliament enacted a new income-tax law. This one wasextraordinarily far ahead of its time, in that it included aprovision for the withholding⁶⁰ of income at the source, and,perhaps for that reason, it was hated even more than theearlier tax had been, even though its top rate was only half ashigh. At a protest meeting held in the City of London in July,1803, several speakers made what, for Britons, must surelyhave been the ultimate commitment of enmity toward theincome tax. If such a measure were necessary to save thecountry, they said, then they would reluctantly have to chooseto let the country go.
Yet gradually, despite repeated setbacks, and even extendedperiods of total oblivion, the British income tax began toflourish. This may have been, as much as anything else, amatter of simple habituation, for a common thread runsthrough the history of income taxes everywhere: Opposition⁶¹ isalways at its most reckless and strident at the very outset; withevery year that passes, the tax tends to become stronger andthe voices of its enemies more muted. Britain’s income tax wasrepealed the year after the victory at Waterloo, was revived ina halfhearted way in 1832, was sponsored with enthusiasm bySir Robert Peel a decade later, and remained in effectthereafter. The basic rate during the second half of thenineteenth century varied⁶² between 5 per cent and less than 1per cent, and it was only 2? per cent, with a modest surtaxon high incomes, as late as 1913. The American idea of veryhigh rates on high incomes eventually caught on in Britain,though, and by the middle 1960’s the top British bracket wasover 90 per cent.
Elsewhere in the world—or at least in the economicallydeveloped world—country after country took the cue fromBritain and instituted an income tax at one time or anotherduring the nineteenth century. Post-revolutionary France soonenacted an income tax, but then repealed it and managed toget along without one for a number of years in the secondhalf of the century; eventually, though, the loss of revenueproved to be intolerable, and the tax returned, to become afixture of the French economy. An income tax was one of thefirst, if not one of the sweetest, fruits of Italian unity⁴¹, whileseveral of the separate states that were to combine into theGerman nation had income taxes even before they were united.
By 1911, income taxes also existed in Austria, Spain, Belgium,Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, Greece,Luxembourg, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and India.
As for the United States, the enormous size of whoseincome-tax collections and the apparent docility⁶³ of whosetaxpayers are now the envy of governments everywhere, it wasa laggard⁶⁴ in the matter of instituting an income tax and foryears was an inveterate⁶⁵ backslider in the matter of keeping oneon its statute books. It is true that in Colonial times there werevarious revenue systems bearing some slight resemblance toincome taxes—in Rhode Island at one point, for example, eachcitizen was supposed to guess the financial status of ten of hisneighbors, in regard to both income and property, in order toprovide a basis for tax assessments⁶⁶—but such schemes, beinginefficient and subject to obvious opportunities for abuse, wereshort-lived. The first man to propose a federal income tax wasPresident Madison’s Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander J.
Dallas; he did so in 1814, but a few months later the War of1812 ended, the demand for government revenue eased, andthe Secretary was hooted⁶⁷ down so decisively that the subjectwas not revived until the time of the Civil War, when both theunion and the Confederacy enacted income-tax bills. Before1900, very few new income taxes appear to have been enactedanywhere without the stimulus⁶⁸ of a war. National income taxeswere—and until quite recently largely remained—war anddefense measures. In June of 1862, prodded⁶⁹ by public concernover a public debt that was increasing at the rate of twomillion dollars a day, Congress reluctantly passed a lawproviding for an income tax at progressive rates up to amaximum of 10 per cent, and on July 1st President Lincolnsigned it into law, along with a bill to punish the practice ofpolygamy. (The next day, stocks on the New York Exchangetook a dive, which was probably not attributable to thepolygamy bill.)“I am taxed on my income! This is perfectly⁷⁰ gorgeous! Inever felt so important in my life before,” Mark Twain wrote inthe Virginia City, Nevada, Territorial⁷¹ Enterprise after he hadpaid his first income-tax bill, for the year 1864—$36.82,including a penalty of $3.12 for being late. Although few othertaxpayers were so enthusiastic, the law remained in force until1872. It was, however, subjected to a succession of ratereductions and amendments⁷², one of them being the elimination,in 1865, of its progressive rates, on the arresting ground thatcollecting 10 per cent on high incomes and lower rates onlower incomes constituted undue⁷⁴ discrimination against wealth.
Annual revenue collections mounted from two million dollars in1863 to seventy-three million in 1866, and then descendedsharply. For two decades, beginning in the earlyeighteen-seventies, the very thought of an income tax did notenter the American mind, apart from rare occasions whensome Populist or Socialist⁷⁵ agitator⁷⁶ would propose theestablishment of such a tax designed specifically to soak theurban rich. Then, in 1893, when it had become clear that thecountry was relying on an obsolete⁷⁷ revenue system that puttoo little burden on businessmen and members of theprofessions, President Cleveland proposed an income tax. Theoutcry that followed was shrill⁷⁸. Senator John Sherman, of Ohio,the father of the Sherman Antitrust Act, called the proposal“socialism, communism, and devilism,” and another senatorspoke darkly of “the professors with their books, the socialistswith their schemes … [and] the anarchists⁷⁹ with their bombs,”
while over in the House a congressman⁸⁰ from Pennsylvania laidhis cards on the table in the following terms:
An income tax! A tax so odious⁸¹ that no administration ever dared toimpose it except in time of war.… It is unutterably distasteful both in itsmoral and material aspects. It does not belong to a free country. It is classlegislation.… Do you desire to offer a reward to dishonesty and toencourage perjury⁸²? The imposition of the tax will corrupt the people. It willbring in its train the spy and the informer. It will necessitate⁸³ a swarm⁸⁴ ofofficials with inquisitorial powers.… Mr. Chairman, pass this bill and theDemocratic Party signs its death warrant.
The proposal that gave rise to these fulminations was for a taxat a uniform rate of 2 per cent on income in excess of fourthousand dollars, and it was enacted into law in 1894. TheDemocratic Party survived, but the new law did not. Before itcould be put into force, it was thrown out by the SupremeCourt, on the ground that it violated the Constitutional provisionforbidding “direct” taxes unless they were apportioned⁸⁵ amongthe states according to population (curiously, this point had notbeen raised in connection with the Civil War income tax), andthe income-tax issue was dead again, this time for a decadeand a half. In 1909, by what a tax authority named JeromeHellerstein has called “one of the most ironic⁸⁶ twists of politicalevents in American history,” the Constitutional amendment⁷³ (thesixteenth) that eventually gave Congress the power to levy⁸⁷ taxeswithout apportionment among the states was put forward bythe implacable opponents of the income tax, the Republicans,who took the step as a political move, confidently believing thatthe amendment would never be ratified⁸⁸ by the states. To theirdismay, it was ratified in 1913, and later that year Congressenacted a graduated tax on individuals at rates ranging from 1per cent to 7 per cent, and also a flat tax of 1 per cent onthe net profits of corporations. The income tax has been withus ever since.
By and large, its history since 1913 has been one of risingrates and of the seasonable appearance of special provisions tosave people in the upper brackets from the inconvenience ofhaving to pay those rates. The first sharp rise took placeduring the First World War, and by 1918 the bottom rate was6 per cent and the top one, applicable to taxable income inexcess of a million dollars, was 77 per cent, or far more thanany government had previously⁸⁹ ventured to exact on income ofany amount. But the end of the war and the “return tonormalcy” brought a reversal of the trend, and there followedan era of low taxes for rich and poor alike. Rates werereduced by degrees until 1925, when the standard rate scaleran from 1? per cent to an absolute top of 25 per cent, and,furthermore, a great majority of the country’s wage earnerswere relieved of paying any tax at all by being allowed personalexemptions of fifteen hundred dollars for a single person,thirty-five hundred dollars for a married couple, and fourhundred dollars for each dependent. This was not the wholestory, for it was during the twenties that special-interestprovisions began to appear, stimulated⁹² into being by thecomplex of political forces that has accounted for their increaseat intervals⁹³ ever since. The first important one, adopted in1922, established the principle of favored treatment for capitalgains; this meant that money acquired through a rise in thevalue of investments was, for the first time, taxed at a lowerrate than money earned in wages or for services—as, ofcourse, it still is today. Then, in 1926, came the loophole thathas undoubtedly caused more gnashing of teeth among thosenot in a position to profit by it than any other—the percentagedepletion allowance on petroleum¹³, which permits the owner of aproducing oil well to deduct²⁹ from his taxable income up to27? per cent of his gross annual income from the well and tokeep deducting⁹⁵ that much year after year, even though he hasdeducted the original cost of the well many times over.
Whether or not the twenties were a golden age for theAmerican people in general, they were assuredly a golden agefor the American taxpayer.
The depression and the New Deal brought with them a trendtoward higher tax rates and lower exemptions⁹⁰, which led up toa truly revolutionary era in federal income taxation—that of theSecond World War. By 1936, largely because of greatlyincreased public spending, rates in the higher brackets wereroughly double what they had been in the late twenties, andthe very top bracket was 79 per cent, while, at the low end ofthe scale, personal exemptions had been reduced to the pointwhere a single person was required to pay a small tax even ifhis income was only twelve hundred dollars. (As a matter offact, at that time most industrial workers’ incomes did notexceed twelve hundred dollars.) In 1944 and 1945, the ratescale for individuals reached its historic peak—23 per cent atthe low end and 94 per cent at the high one—while incometaxes on corporations, which had been creeping up graduallyfrom the original 1913 rate of 1 per cent, reached the pointwhere some companies were liable for 80 per cent. But therevolutionary thing about wartime taxation was not the veryhigh rates on high incomes; indeed, in 1942, when this upwardsurge was approaching full flood, a new means of escape forhigh-bracket taxpayers appeared, or an old one widened, forthe period during which stocks or other assets must be held inorder to benefit from the capital-gains provision was reducedfrom eighteen months to six. What was revolutionary was therise of industrial wages and the extension of substantial taxrates to the wage earner, making him, for the first time, animportant contributor to government revenue. Abruptly, theincome tax became a mass tax.
And so it has remained. Although taxes on big andmiddle-sized businesses settled down to a flat rate of 52 percent, rates on individual income did not change significantlybetween 1945 and 1964. (That is to say, the basic rates didnot change significantly; there were temporary remissions,amounting to anywhere from 5 per cent to 17 per cent of thesums due under the basic rates, during the years 1946 through1950.) The range was from 20 per cent to 91 per cent until1950; there was a small rise during the Korean War, but itwent right back there in 1954. In 1950, another importantescape route, the so-called “restricted stock option,” opened up,enabling some corporate⁹⁸ executives to be taxed on part of theircompensation at low capital-gains rates. The significant change,invisible in the rate schedule, has been a continuation of theone begun in wartime; namely, the increase in theproportionate tax burden carried by the middle and lowerincome groups. Paradoxical as it may seem, the evolution ofour income tax has been from a low-rate tax relying forrevenue on the high income group to a high-rate tax relyingon the middle and lower-middle income groups. The Civil Warlevy, which affected¹⁰⁰ only one per cent of the population, wasunmistakably a rich man’s tax, and the same was true of the1913 levy. Even in 1918, at the height of the budget squeezeproduced by the First World War, less than four and a halfmillion Americans, of a total population of more than ahundred million, had to file income-tax returns at all. In 1933,in the depths of the depression, only three and three-quartersmillion returns were filed, and in 1939 an élite consisting ofseven hundred thousand taxpayers, of a population of ahundred and thirty million, accounted for nine-tenths of allincome-tax collections, while in 1960 it took some thirty-twomillion taxpayers—something over one-sixth of the population—toaccount for nine-tenths of all collections, and a whopping bignine-tenths it was, totalling some thirty-five and a half billiondollars, compared to less than a billion in 1939.
The historian Seligman wrote in 1911 that the history ofincome taxation the world over consisted essentially¹⁰¹ of “evolutiontoward basing it on ability to pay.” One wonders whatqualifications he might add, on the basis of the Americanexperience since then, if he were still alive. Of course, onereason people with middle incomes pay far more in taxes thanthey used to is that there are far more of them. Changes inthe country’s social and economic structure have been as big afactor in the shift as the structure of the income tax has. Itremains probable, though, that, in actual practice, the aboriginalincome tax of 1913 extracted money from citizens with stricterregard to their ability to pay than the present income tax does.
WHATEVER the faults of our income-tax law, it is beyondquestion the best-obeyed income-tax law in the world, andincome taxes are now ubiquitous, from the Orient to theOccident and from pole to pole. (Practically all of the dozens ofnew nations that have come into being over the past few yearshave adopted income-tax measures. Walter H. Diamond, theeditor of a publication called Foreign Tax & Trade Briefs, hasnoted that as recently as 1955 he could rattle¹⁰² off the names oftwo dozen countries, large and small, that did not tax theindividual, but that in 1965 the only names he could rattle offwere those of a couple of British colonies, Bermuda and theBahamas; a couple of tiny republics, San Marino and Andorra;three oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, the Sultanate of Muscatand Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar; and two rather inhospitablecountries, Monaco and Saudi Arabia, which taxed the incomesof resident foreigners but not those of nationals. EvenCommunist countries have income taxes, though they count onthem for only a small percentage of their total revenue; Russiaapplies different rates to different occupations, shopkeepers andecclesiastics being in the high tax bracket, artists and writersnear the middle, and laborers¹⁰³ and artisans at the bottom.)Evidence of the superior efficiency of tax collecting in theUnited States is plentiful¹⁰⁴; for instance, our costs foradministration and enforcement come to only about forty-fourcents for every hundred dollars collected, as against a ratemore than twice as high in Canada, more than three times ashigh in England, France, and Belgium, and many times as highin other places. This kind of American efficiency is the despairof foreign tax collectors. Toward the end of his term in officeMortimer M. Caplin, who was commissioner¹⁰⁵ of InternalRevenue from January, 1961, until July, 1964, held consultationswith the leading tax administrators¹⁰⁶ of six Western Europeancountries, and the question heard again and again was “Howdo you do it? Do they like to pay taxes over there?” Ofcourse, they do not, but, as Caplin said at the time, “we havea lot going for us that the Europeans haven’t.” One thing wehave going for us is tradition. American income taxes originatedand developed not as a result of the efforts of monarchs¹⁰⁷ to filltheir coffers at the expense of their subjects but as a result ofthe efforts of an elected government to serve the generalinterest. A widely travelled tax lawyer observed not long ago,“In most countries, it’s impossible to engage in a seriousdiscussion of income taxes, because they aren’t taken seriously.”
They are taken seriously here, and part of the reason is thepower and skill of our income-tax police force, the InternalRevenue Service.
Unquestionably, the “swarm of officials” feared by thePennsylvania congressman in 1894 has come into being—andthere are those who would add that the officials have the“inquisitorial powers” he also feared. As of the beginning of1965, the Internal Revenue Service had approximately sixtythousand employees, including more than six thousand revenueofficers and more than twelve thousand revenue agents, andthese eighteen thousand men, possessing the right to inquireinto every penny of everyone’s income and into matters likeexactly what was discussed at an expense-account meal, andarmed with the threat of heavy punishments, have powers thatmight reasonably be called inquisitorial. But the I.R.S. engagesin many activities besides actual tax collecting, and some ofthese suggest that it exercises its despotic powers in anequitable way, if not actually in a benevolent¹⁰⁸ one. Notableamong the additional activities is a taxpayer-education programon a scale that occasionally inspires an official to boast that theI.R.S. runs the largest university in the world. As part of thisprogram, it puts out dozens of publications explicating variousaspects of the law, and it is proud of the fact that the mostgeneral of these—a blue-covered pamphlet entitled “Your FederalIncome Tax,” which is issued annually¹⁰⁹ and in 1965 could bebought for forty cents at any District Director’s office—is sopopular that it is often reprinted by private publishers, who sellit to the unwary for a dollar or more, pointing out, withtriumphant accuracy, that it is an official government publication.
(Since government publications are not copyrighted, this isperfectly legal.) The I.R.S. also conducts “institutes” on technicalquestions every December for the enlightenment of the vastcorps of “tax practitioners¹¹⁰”—accountants and lawyers—who willshortly be preparing the returns of individuals and corporations.
It puts out elementary tax manuals designed specially³ for freedistribution to any high schools that ask for them—and,according to one I.R.S. official, some eighty-five per cent ofAmerican high schools did ask for them in one recent year.
(The question of whether schoolchildren ought to be spendingtheir time boning up on the tax laws is one that the I.R.S.
considers to be outside its scope.) Furthermore, just before thetax deadline each year, the I.R.S. customarily goes on televisionwith spot advertisements offering tax pointers and reminders¹¹¹. Itis proud to say that, of the various spots, a clear majority havebeen in the interests of protecting taxpayers from overpaying.
In the fall of 1963, the I.R.S. took a big step towardincreasing the efficiency of its collections still further, and, by afeat worthy¹¹³ of the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood,” it managedto present the step to the public as a grandmotherly move tohelp everybody out. The step was the establishment of aso-called national-identity file, involving the assignment to everytaxpayer of an account number (usually his Social Securitynumber), and its intention was to practically eliminate theproblem created by people who fail to declare their incomefrom corporate dividends¹¹⁴ or from interest on bank accounts orbonds—a form of evasion that was thought to have beencosting the Treasury hundreds of millions a year. But that isnot all. When the number is entered in the proper place on areturn, “this will make certain that you are given immediatecredit for taxes reported and paid by you, and that any refundwill be promptly¹¹⁵ recorded in your favor”—so CommissionerCaplin commented brightly on the front cover of the 1964tax-return forms. The I.R.S. then began taking another giantstep—the adoption¹¹⁶ of a system for automating¹¹⁷ a large part ofthe tax-checking process, in which seven regional computerswould collect and collate¹¹⁸ data that would be fed into a masterdata-processing center at Martinsburg, West Virginia. Thisinstallation, designed to make a quarter of a million numbercomparisons per second, began to be called the MartinsburgMonster even before it was in full operation. In 1965, betweenfour and five million returns a year were given a completeaudit, and all returns were checked for mathematical errors.
Some of this mathematical work was being done by computersand some by people, but by 1967, when the computer systemwas going full blast, all the mathematical work was done bymachine, thus freeing many I.R.S. employees to subject evenmore returns to detailed¹¹⁹ audits¹²⁰. According to a publicationauthorized by the I.R.S. back in 1963, though, “the capacityand memory of the [computer] system will help taxpayers whoforget prior year credits or who do not take full advantage oftheir rights under the laws.” In short, it was going to be afriendly monster.
IF the mask that the I.R.S. had presented to the country inrecent years has worn a rather ghastly expression of benignity,part of the explanation is probably nothing more sinister¹²¹ thanthe fact that Caplin, the man who dominated it in those years,is a cheerful extrovert¹²² and a natural politician, and that hisinfluence continued to be felt under the man who wasappointed to succeed him as Commissioner in December1964—a young Washington lawyer named Sheldon S. Cohen,who took over the job after a six-month interim¹²³ during whichan I.R.S. career man named Bertrand M. Harding served asActing Commissioner. (When Caplin resigned as Commissioner,he stepped out of politics, at least temporarily, returning to hisWashington law practice as a specialist in, among other things,the tax problems of businessmen.) Caplin is widely consideredto have been one of the best Commissioners¹²⁵ of InternalRevenue in history, and, at the very least, he was certainly animprovement on two fairly recent occupants of the post, one ofwhom, some time after leaving it, was convicted and sentencedto two years in prison for evading¹²⁶ his own income taxes, andthe other of whom subsequently ran for public office on aplatform of opposition to any federal income tax—as a formerumpire might stump¹²⁷ the country against baseball. Among theaccomplishments that Mortimer Caplin, a small, quick-spoken,dynamic man who grew up in New York City and used to bea University of Virginia law professor, is credited with asCommissioner is the abolition¹²⁸ of the practice that had previouslybeen alleged¹²⁹ to exist of assigning collection quotas¹³⁰ to I.R.S.
agents. He gave the top echelons¹³¹ of I.R.S. an air of integritybeyond cavil¹³², and, what was perhaps most striking, managedthe strange feat¹¹² of projecting to the nation a sort ofenthusiasm for taxes, considered abstractly. Thus he managedto collect them with a certain style—a sort of subsidiary NewFrontier, which he called the New Direction. The chief thrust ofthe New Direction was to put increased emphasis on educationleading toward increased voluntary compliance¹³³ with the tax law,instead of concentrating on the search for and prosecution¹³⁴ ofconscious offenders¹³⁵. In a manifesto¹³⁶ that Caplin issued to hisswarm of officials in the spring of 1961, he wrote, “We allshould understand that the Service is not simply running adirect enforcement business aimed at making $2 billion inadditional assessments, collecting another billion from delinquentaccounts, and prosecuting¹³⁷ a few hundred evaders. Rather, it ischarged with administering an enormous self-assessment taxsystem which raises over $90 billion from what peoplethemselves put down on their tax returns and voluntarily pay,with another $2 or $3 billion coming from direct enforcementactivities. In short, we cannot forget that 97 per cent of ourtotal revenue comes from self-assessment or voluntarycompliance, with only three per cent coming directly fromenforcement. Our chief mission is to encourage and achievemore effective voluntary compliance.… The New Direction isreally a shift in emphasis. But it is a very important shift.”
It may be, though, that the true spirit of the New Direction isbetter epitomized on the jacket of a book entitled “TheAmerican Way in Taxation,” edited by Lillian Doris, which waspublished in 1963 with the blessing¹⁴⁰ of Caplin, who wrote theforeword. “Here is the exciting story of the largest and mostefficient tax collecting organization the world has everknown—the United States Internal Revenue Service!” the jacketannounced, in part. “Here are the stirring events, thebitterly-fought legislative¹⁴¹ battles, the dedicated¹⁴² civil servants thathave marched through the past century and left an indelibleimprint on our nation. You’ll thrill to the epic¹⁴³ legal battle to killthe income tax … and you’ll be astonished at the future plansof the I.R.S. You’ll see how giant computers, now on thedrawing boards, are going to affect the tax collection systemand influence the lives of many American men and women innew and unusual ways!” It sounded a bit like a circus barkerhawking a public execution.
It is debatable whether the New Direction watchword of“voluntary compliance” could properly be used to describe asystem of tax collection under which some three-quarters of allcollections from individuals are obtained through withholding atthe source, under which the I.R.S. and its Martinsburg Monsterlurk to catch the unwary evader¹³⁸, and under which thepunishment for evasion runs up to five years in prison peroffense in addition to extremely heavy financial penalties. Caplin,however, did not seem to feel a bit of concern over this point.
With tireless good humor, he made the rounds of the nation’sorganizations of businessmen, accountants, and lawyers, givingluncheon talks in which he praised them for their voluntarycompliance in the past, exhorted¹⁴⁵ them to greater efforts in thefuture, and assured them that it was all in a good cause.
“We’re still striving for the human touch in our taxadministration,” declared the essay on the cover of the 1964tax-return forms, which Caplin signed, and which he says hecomposed in collaboration¹⁴⁶ with his wife. “I see a lot of humorin this job,” he told a caller a few hours after remarking to aluncheon meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Washington at theMayflower Hotel, “Last year was the fiftieth anniversary of theincome-tax amendment to the Constitution, but the InternalRevenue Service somehow or other didn’t seem to get anybirthday cakes.” This might perhaps be considered a form ofgallows humor, except that the hangman is not supposed to bethe one who makes the jokes.
Cohen, the Commissioner who succeeded Caplin and was stillin office in mid-1968, is a born-and-bred Washingtonian who, in1952, graduated from George Washington University Law Schoolat the top of his class; served in a junior capacity with theI.R.S. for the next four years; practiced law in Washington forseven years after that, eventually becoming a partner in thecelebrated firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter; at the beginning of1964 returned to the I.R.S., as its chief counsel; and a yearlater, at the age of thirty-seven, became the youngestCommissioner of Internal Revenue in history. A man withclose-cropped brown hair, candid¹⁴⁷ eyes, and a guileless mannerthat makes him seem even younger than he is, Cohen camefrom the chief counsel’s office with the reputation of havinguplifted it both practically and philosophically¹⁴⁸; he wasresponsible for an administrative¹⁴⁹ reorganization that has beenwidely praised as making faster decisions possible, and for ademand that the I.R.S. be consistent in its legal stand in casesagainst taxpayers (that it refrain from taking one position on afine point of Code interpretation¹⁵⁰ in Philadelphia, say, and theopposite position on the same point in Omaha), which isconsidered a triumph of high principle over governmental greed.
In general, Cohen said upon assuming office, he intended tocontinue Caplin’s policies—to emphasize “voluntary compliance,”
to strive for agreeable, or at least not disagreeable, relationswith the taxpaying public, and so on. He is a less gregariousand a more reflective man than Caplin, however, and thisdifference has had its effect on the I.R.S. as a whole. He hasstuck relatively¹⁵² close to his desk, leaving the luncheon-circuitpep talks to subordinates. “Mort was wonderful at that sort ofthing,” Cohen said in 1965. “Public opinion of the Service ishigh now as a result of his big push in that direction. Wewant to keep it high without more pushing on my part.
Anyhow, I couldn’t do it well—I’m not made that way.”
A charge that has often been made, and continues to bemade, is that the office of Commissioner carries with it far toomuch power. The Commissioner has no authority to proposechanges in rates or initiate¹⁵³ other new tax legislation—theauthority to propose rate changes belongs to the Secretary ofthe Treasury, who may or may not seek the Commissioner’sadvice in the matter, and the enactment¹⁵⁴ of new tax laws is, ofcourse, the job of Congress and the President—but tax laws,since they must cover so many different situations, arenecessarily written in rather general terms, and theCommissioner is solely¹⁵⁵ responsible (subject to reversal in thecourts) for writing the regulations that are supposed to explainthe laws in detail. And sometimes the regulations are a bitcloudy themselves, and in such cases who is better qualified¹⁵⁶ toexplain them than their author, the Commissioner? Thus itcomes about that almost every word that drops from theCommissioner’s mouth, whether at his desk or at luncheonmeetings, is immediately distributed by the various tax publishingservices to tax accountants and lawyers all over the countryand is gobbled up by them with an avidity not always accordedthe remarks of an appointed official. Because of this, somepeople see the Commissioner as a virtual tyrant¹⁵⁷. Others,including both theoretical and practical tax experts, disagree.
Jerome Hellerstein, who is a law professor at New YorkUniversity Law School as well as a tax adviser⁵, says, “Thelatitude of action given the Commissioner is great, and it’s truethat he can do things that may affect the economicdevelopment of the country as well as the fortunes ofindividuals and corporations. But if he had small freedom ofaction, it would result in rigidity¹⁵⁹ and certainty of interpretation,and would make it much easier for tax practitioners like me tomanipulate the law to their clients’ advantage. TheCommissioner’s latitude¹⁵⁸ gives him a healthy unpredictability.”
CERTAINLY Caplin did not knowingly abuse his power, nor hasCohen done so. Upon visiting first one man and then theother in the Commissioner’s office, I found that both conveyedthe impression of being men of high intelligence who wereliving—as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., has said that Thoreaulived—at a high degree of moral tension. And the cause of themoral tension is not hard to find; it almost surely stemmedfrom the difficulty of presiding over compliance, voluntary orinvoluntary, with a law of which one does not very heartilyapprove. In 1958, when Caplin appeared—as a witness versedin tax matters, rather than as Commissioner of InternalRevenue—before the House Ways and Means Committee, heproposed an across-the-board program of reforms, including,among other things, either the total elimination or a drasticcurbing of favored treatment for capital gains; the lowering ofpercentage depletion⁹⁴ rates on petroleum and other minerals; thewithholding of taxes on dividends and interest; and the eventualdrafting of an entirely¹⁶⁰ new income-tax law to replace the 1954Code, which he declared had led to “hardships, complexities¹⁶¹,and opportunities for tax avoidance.” Shortly after Caplin leftoffice, he explained in detail what his ideal tax law would belike. Compared to the present tax law, it would be heroicallysimple, with loopholes eliminated, and most personal deductionsand exemptions eliminated, too, and with a rate scale rangingfrom 10 to 50 per cent.
In Caplin’s case, the resolution of moral tension, insofar as heachieved it, was not entirely the result of rational analysis.
“Some critics take a completely cynical¹⁶⁴ view of the income tax,”
he mused¹⁶⁵ one day during his stint¹⁶⁶ as Commissioner. “Theysay, in effect, ‘It’s a mess, and nothing can be done about it.’
I can’t go along with that. True, many compromises arenecessary, and will continue to be. But I refuse to accept adefeatist attitude. There’s a mystic quality about our tax system.
No matter how bad it may be from the technical standpoint, ithas a vitality¹⁶⁷ because of the very high level of compliance.” Hepaused for quite a long time, perhaps finding a flaw in his ownargument; in the past, after all, universal compliance with a lawhas not always been a sign that it was either intelligent or just.
Then he went on, “Looking over the sweep of years, I thinkwe’ll come out well. Probably a point of crisis of some kind willmake us begin to see beyond selfish interests. I’m optimisticthat fifty years from now we’ll have a pretty good tax.”
As for Cohen, he was working in the legislation-draftingsection of the I.R.S. at the time the present Code was written,and he had a hand in its composition. One might suppose thatthis fact would cause him to have a certain proprietary¹⁶⁸ feelingtoward it, but apparently¹⁶⁹ that is not so. “Remember that wehad a Republican administration then, and I’m a Democrat,” hesaid one day in 1965. “When you are drafting a statute, youoperate as a technician. Any pride you may feel afterward¹⁷⁰ ispride in technical competence¹⁷¹.” So Cohen can reread his oldprose, now enshrined as law, with neither elation¹⁵¹ nor remorse,and he has not the slightest hesitation¹⁷² about endorsing¹⁷³ Caplin’sopinion that the Code leads to “hardships, complexities, andopportunities for tax avoidance.” He is more pessimistic thanCaplin about finding the answer in simplification. “Perhaps wecan move the rates down and get rid of some deductions¹⁶³,” hesays, “but then we may find we need new deductions, in theinterests of fairness. I suspect that a complex society requires acomplex tax law. If we put in a simpler code, it would probablybe complex again in a few years.”
II“EVERY nation has the government it deserves,” the Frenchwriter and diplomat¹⁷⁴ Joseph de Maistre declared in 1811. Sincethe primary function of government is to make laws, thestatement implies that every nation has the laws it deserves,and if the doctrine¹⁷⁵ may be considered at best a half truth inthe case of governments that exist by force, it does seempersuasive in the case of governments that exist by popularconsent. If the single most important law now on the statutebooks of the United States is the income-tax law, it wouldfollow that we must have the income-tax law we deserve. Muchof the voluminous discussion of the income-tax law in recentyears has centered on plain violations¹⁷⁶ of it, among them thedeliberate padding of tax-deductible business-expense accounts,the matter of taxable income that is left undeclared on taxreturns, fraudulently or otherwise—a sum estimated at as highas twenty-five billion dollars a year—and the matter ofcorruption within the ranks of the Internal Revenue Service,which some authorities believe to be fairly common, at least inlarge cities. Such forms of outlawry¹⁷⁷, of course, reflect timelessand worldwide human frailties¹⁷⁸. The law itself, however, hascertain characteristics that are more closely related to aparticular time and place, and if de Maistre was right, theseshould reflect national characteristics; the income-tax law, that is,should be to some extent a national mirror. How does thereflection look?
TO repeat, then, the basic law under which income taxes arenow imposed is the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, asamplified by innumerable regulations issued by the InternalRevenue Service, interpreted by innumerable judicial¹⁷⁹ decisions,and amended¹⁸⁰ by several Acts of Congress, including theRevenue Act of 1964, which embodied¹⁸¹ the biggest tax cut inour history. The Code, a document longer than “War andPeace,” is phrased—inevitably, perhaps—in the sort of jargonthat stuns¹⁸² the mind and disheartens the spirit; a fairly typicalsentence, dealing¹⁸³ with the definition of the word “employment,”
starts near the bottom of page 564, includes more than athousand words, nineteen semicolons, forty-two simpleparentheses, three parentheses¹⁸⁴ within parentheses, and evenone unaccountable interstitial period, and comes to a gaspingend, with a definitive¹⁸⁵ period, near the top of page 567. Notuntil one has penetrated¹⁸⁶ to the part of the Code dealing withexport-import taxes (which fall within its province, along withestate taxes and various other federal imposts) does one comeupon a comprehensible and diverting sentence like “Everyperson who shall export oleomargarine shall brand upon everytub, firkin, or other package containing such article the word‘Oleomargarine,’ in plain Roman letters not less than one-halfinch square.” Yet a clause on page 2 of the Code, though it isnot a sentence at all, is as clear and forthright¹⁸⁷ as one couldwish; it sets forth⁹⁷ without ado the rates at which the incomesof single individuals are to be taxed: 20 per cent on taxableincome of not over $2,000; 22 per cent on taxable income ofover $2,000 but not over $4,000; and so on up to a top rateof 91 per cent on taxable income of over $200,000. (As wehave seen, the rates were amended downward in 1964 to atop of 70 per cent.) Right at the start, then, the Code makesits declaration of principle, and, to judge by the rate table, it isimplacably egalitarian, taxing the poor relatively lightly, thewell-to-do moderately, and the very rich at levels that verge¹⁸⁸ onthe confiscatory¹⁸⁹.
But, to repeat a point that has become so well known that itscarcely needs repeating, the Code does not live up to itsprinciples very well. For proof of this, one need look no furtherthan some of the recent score sheets of the income tax—a setof volumes entitled Statistics of Income, which are publishedannually by the Internal Revenue Service. For 1960, individualswith gross incomes of between $4,000 and $5,000, after takingadvantage of all their deductions and personal exemptions, andavailing themselves of the provision that allows married couplesand the heads of households to be taxed at rates generallylower than those for single persons, ended up paying anaverage tax bill of about one-tenth of their reportable receipts,while those in the $10,000–$15,000 range paid a bill of aboutone-seventh, those in the $25,000–$50,000 range paid a bill ofnot quite a quarter, and those in the $50,000–$100,000 rangepaid a bill of about a third. Up to this point, clearly, we find aprogression according to ability to pay, much as the rate tableprescribes. However, the progression stops abruptly when wereach the top income brackets—that is, at just the point whereit is supposed to become most marked. For 1960, the$150,000–$200,000, $200,000–$500,000, $500,000$1,000,000 and million-plus groups each paid, on the average,less than 50 per cent of their reportable incomes, and whenone takes into consideration the fact that the richer a man is,the likelier it is that a huge proportion of his money need noteven be reported as gross taxable income—all income fromcertain bonds, for example, and half of all income fromlong-term capital gains—it becomes evident that at the very topof the income scale the percentage rate of actual taxation turnsdownward. The evidence is confirmed by the Statistics ofIncome for 1961, which breaks down figures on paymentsaccording to bracket, and which shows that although 7,487taxpayers declared gross incomes of $200,000 or more, fewerthan five hundred of them had net income that was taxed atthe rate of 91 per cent. Throughout its life, the rate of 91 percent was a public tranquilizer, making everyone in the lowerbracket feel fortunate not to be rich, and not hurting the richvery much. And then, to top off the joke, if that is what it is,there are the people with more income than anyone else whopay less tax than anyone else—that is, those with annualincomes of a million dollars or more who manage to findperfectly legal ways of paying no income tax at all. Accordingto Statistics of Income, there were eleven of them in 1960,out of a national total of three hundred and six million-a-yearmen, and seventeen in 1961, out of a total of three hundredand ninety-eight. In plain fact, the income tax is hardlyprogressive at all.
The explanation of this disparity between appearance andreality, so huge that it lays the Code open to a broadaccusation of hypocrisy¹⁹⁰, is to be found in the detailedexceptions to the standard rates which lurk¹⁴⁴ in its dimdepths—exceptions that are usually called special-interestprovisions or, more bluntly, loopholes. (“Loophole,” as allfair-minded users of the word are ready to admit, is asomewhat subjective¹⁹¹ designation, for one man’s loophole maybe another man’s lifeline—or perhaps at some other time, thesame man’s lifeline.) Loopholes were noticeably absent from theoriginal 1913 income-tax law. How they came to be law andwhy they remain law are questions involving politics andpossibly metaphysics, but their actual workings are relativelysimple, and are illuminating¹⁹² to watch. By far the simplestmethod of avoiding income taxes—at least for someone whohas a large amount of capital at his disposal—is to invest in thebonds of states, municipalities, port authorities, and toll¹⁹³ roads;the interest paid on all such bonds is unequivocally tax-exempt.
Since the interest on high-grade tax-exempt bonds in recentyears has run from three to five per cent, a man who investsten million dollars in them can collect $300,000 to $500,000 ayear tax-free without putting himself or his tax lawyer to theslightest trouble; if he had been foolish enough to sink themoney in ordinary investments yielding, say, five per cent, hewould have had a taxable income of $500,000, and at the1964 rate, assuming that he was single, had no other income,and did not avail himself of any dodges¹⁹⁴, he would have to paytaxes of almost $367,000. The exemption⁹¹ on state andmunicipal bonds has been part of our income-tax law since itsbeginnings; it was based originally on Constitutional groundsand is now defended on the ground that the states and townsneed the money. Most Secretaries of the Treasury have lookedon the exemption with disfavor, but not one has been able toaccomplish its repeal⁵⁹.
Probably the most important special-interest provision in theCode is the one that concerns capital gains. The staff of theJoint Economic Committee of Congress wrote in a report issuedin 1961, “Capital gains treatment has become one of the mostimpressive loopholes in the federal revenue structure.” What theprovision says, in essence, is that a taxpayer who makes acapital investment (in real estate, a corporation, a block ofstock, or whatever), holds on to it for at least six months, andthen sells it at a profit is entitled to be taxed on the profit ata rate much lower than the rate on ordinary income; to bespecific, the rate is half of that taxpayer’s ordinary top tax rateor twenty-five per cent whichever is less. What this means toanyone whose income would normally put him in a very hightax bracket is obvious: he must find a way of getting as muchas possible of that income in the form of capital gains.
Consequently, the game of finding ways of converting ordinaryincome into capital gains has become very popular in the pastdecade or two. The game is often won without much of astruggle. On television one evening in the middle 1960s, DavidSusskind asked six assembled multimillionaires whether any ofthem considered tax rates a stumbling block on the highroad towealth in America. There was a long silence, almost as if thenotion were new to the multimillionaires, and then one of them,in the tone of some one explaining something to a child,mentioned the capital-gains provision and said that he didn’tconsider taxes much of a problem. There was no morediscussion of high tax rates that night.
If the capital-gains provision resembles the exemption oncertain bonds in that the advantages it affords are of benefitchiefly to the rich, it differs in other ways. It is by far themore accommodating of the two loopholes; indeed, it is a sortof mother loophole capable of spawning¹⁹⁵ other loopholes. Forexample, one might think that a taxpayer would need to havecapital before he could have a capital gain. Yet a way wasdiscovered—and was passed into law in 1950—for him to getthe gain before he has the capital. This is the stock-optionprovision. Under its terms, a corporation may give its executivesthe right to buy its shares at any time within a stipulatedperiod—say, five years—at or near the open-market price at thetime of the granting of the option; later on, if, as hashappened so often, the market price of the stock goessky-high, the executives may exercise their options to buy thestock at the old price, may sell it on the open market sometime later at the new price, and may pay only capital-gainsrates on the difference, provided that they go through thesemotions without unseemly haste. The beauty of it all from anexecutive’s point of view is that once the stock has gone upsubstantially in value, his option itself becomes a valuablecommodity, against which he can borrow the cash he needs inorder to exercise it; then, having bought the stock and sold itagain, he can pay off his debt and have a capital gain that hasarisen from the investment of no capital. The beauty of it allfrom the corporations’ point of view is that they cancompensate their executives partly in money taxable at relativelylow rates. Of course, the whole scheme comes to nothing if thecompany’s stock goes down, which does happen occasionally, orif it simply doesn’t go up, but even then the executive has hada free play on the roulette wheel of the stock market, with achance of winning a great deal and practically no danger oflosing anything—something that the tax law offers no othergroup.
By favoring capital gains over ordinary income, the Codeseems to be putting forward two very dubious¹⁹⁶ notions—thatone form of unearned income is more deserving than anyform of earned income, and that people with money to investare more deserving than people without it. Hardly anyonecontends that the favored treatment of capital gains can bejustified on the ground of fairness; those who consider thisaspect of the matter are apt to agree with Hellerstein, who haswritten, “From a sociological viewpoint, there is a good deal tobe said for more severe taxation of profit from appreciation¹⁹⁷ inthe value of property than from personal-service income.” Thedefense, then, is based on other grounds. For one, there is arespectable economic theory that supports a complete exemptionof capital gains from income tax, the argument being thatwhereas wages and dividends or interest from investments arefruits of the capital tree, and are therefore taxable income,capital gains represent the growth of the tree itself, and aretherefore not income at all. This distinction is actually embeddedin the tax laws of some countries—most notably¹⁹⁸ in the tax lawof Britain, which in principle did not tax capital gains until 1964.
Another argument—this one purely¹⁹⁹ pragmatic—has it that thecapital-gains provision is necessary to encourage people to takerisks with their capital. (Similarly, the advocates of stock optionssay that corporations need them to attract and hold executivetalent.) Finally, nearly all tax authorities are agreed that taxingcapital gains on exactly the same basis as other income, whichis what most reformers say ought to be done, would involveformidable technical difficulties.
Particular subcategories of the rich and the well-paid can availthemselves of various other avenues of escape, includingcorporate pension plans, which, like stock options, contribute tothe solution of the tax problems of executives; tax-freefoundations set up ostensibly for charitable and educationalpurposes, of which over fifteen thousand help to ease the taxburdens of their benefactors²⁰⁰, though the charitable andeducational activities of some of them are more or less invisible;and personal holding companies, which, subject to rather strictregulations, enable persons with very high incomes frompersonal services like writing and acting¹²⁴ to reduce their taxesby what amounts to incorporating themselves. Of the wholearray of loopholes in the Code, however, probably the mostwidely loathed²⁰¹ is the percentage depletion allowance on oil. Asthe word “depletion” is used in the Code, it refers to theprogressive exhaustion²⁰² of irreplaceable natural resources, but asused on oilmen’s tax returns, it proves to mean a miraculouslyglorified form of what is ordinarily called depreciation²⁰³. Whereasa manufacturer may claim depreciation on a piece of machineryas a tax deduction¹⁶² only until he has deducted⁹⁶ the original costof the machine—until, that is, the machine is theoreticallyworthless from wear—an individual or corporate oil investor¹⁴, forreasons that defy logical explanation, may go on claimingpercentage depletion on a producing well indefinitely, even ifthis means that the original cost of the well has been recoveredmany times over. The oil-depletion allowance is 27.5 per cent ayear up to a maximum of half of the oil investor’s net income(there are smaller allowances on other natural resources, suchas 23 per cent on uranium, 10 per cent on coal, and 5 percent on oyster²⁰⁴ and clam²⁰⁵ shells), and the effect it has on thetaxable income of an oil investor, especially when it is combinedwith the effects of other tax-avoidance devices, is trulyastonishing; for instance, over a recent five-year period oneoilman had a net income of fourteen and a third milliondollars, on which he paid taxes of $80,000, or six-tenths ofone per cent. Unsurprisingly, the percentage-depletion allowanceis always under attack, but, also unsurprisingly, it is defendedwith tigerish zeal—so tigerish that even President Kennedy’s1961 and 1963 proposals for tax revision, which, taken together,are generally considered the broadest program of tax reformever put forward by a chief executive, did not venture tosuggest its repeal. The usual argument is that thepercentage-depletion allowance is needed in order tocompensate oilmen for the risks involved in speculative drilling,and thus insure an adequate supply of oil for national use, butmany people feel that this argument amounts to saying, “Thedepletion allowance is a necessary and desirable federal subsidyto the oil industry,” and thereby²⁰⁶ scuttles²⁰⁷ itself, since grantingsubsidies to individual industries is hardly the proper task ofthe income tax.
THE 1964 Revenue Act does practically nothing to plug theloopholes, but it does make them somewhat less useful, in thatthe drastic reduction of the basic rates on high incomes hasprobably led some high-bracket taxpayers simply to quitbothering with the less convenient or effective of the dodges.
Insofar as the new bill reduces the disparity between theCode’s promises and its performance, that is, it represents akind of adventitious²⁰⁸ reform. (One way to cure all income-taxevasion would be to repeal the income tax.) However, quiteapart from the sophistry—since 1964 happily somewhatlessened—that the Code embodies²⁰⁹, it has certain discernible anddisturbing characteristics that have not been changed and maybe particularly hard to change in the future. Some of themhave to do with its methods of allowing and disallowingdeductions for travel and entertainment expenses by personswho are in business for themselves, or by persons who areemployed but are not reimbursed²¹⁰ for their business expenses—deductions that were estimated fairly recently at between fiveand ten billion dollars a year, with a resulting reduction infederal revenue of between one and two billion. Thetravel-and-entertainment problem—or the T & E problem, as itis customarily called—has been around a long time, and hasstubbornly resisted various attempts to solve it. One of thecrucial points in T & E history occurred in 1930, when thecourts ruled that the actor and songwriter George M.
Cohan—and therefore anyone else—was entitled to deduct hisbusiness expenses on the basis of a reasonable estimate even ifhe could not produce any proof of having paid that sum oreven produce a detailed accounting²¹¹. The Cohan rule, as it cameto be called, remained in effect for more than three decades,during which it was invoked²¹² every spring by thousands ofbusinessmen as ritually as Moslems turn toward Mecca. Overthose decades, estimated business deductions grew like kudzuvines as the estimators became bolder, with the result that theCohan rule and other flexible parts of the T & E regulationswere subjected to a series of attacks by would-be reformers.
Bills that would have virtually or entirely eliminated the Cohanrule were introduced in Congress in 1951 and again in 1959,only to be defeated—in one case, after an outcry that T & Ereform would mean the end of the Kentucky Derby—and in1961 President Kennedy proposed legislation that not onlywould have swept aside the Cohan rule but, by reducing tobetween four and seven dollars a day the amount that a mancould deduct for food and beverages²¹³, would have all but putan end to the era of deductibility in American life. No suchfundamental social change took place. Loud and long wails²¹⁴ ofanguish instantly arose, from businessmen and also from hotels,restaurants, and night clubs, and many of the Kennedyproposals were soon abandoned. Nevertheless, through a seriesof amendments to the Code passed by Congress in 1962 andput into effect by a set of regulations issued by the InternalRevenue Service in 1963, they did lead to the abrogation²¹⁵ of theCohan rule, and the stipulation²¹⁶ that, generally speaking, allbusiness deductions, no matter how small, would thenceforwardhave to be substantiated²¹⁷ by records, if not by actual receipts.
Yet even a cursory²¹⁸ look at the law as it has stood since thenshows that the new, reformed T & E rules fall somewhat shortof the ideal—that, in fact, they are shot through with absurditiesand underlaid by a kind of philistinism. For travel to bedeductible, it must be undertaken primarily for business ratherthan for pleasure and it must be “away from home”—that is tosay, not merely commuting²²⁰. The “away-from-home” stipulationraises the question of where home is, and leads to the conceptof a “tax home,” the place one must be away from in order toqualify for travel deductions; a businessman’s tax home, nomatter how many country houses, hunting lodges²²¹, and branchoffices he may have, is the general area—not just the particularbuilding, that is—of his principal place of employment. As aresult, marriage partners who commute²²³ to work in two differentcities have separate tax homes, but, fortunately, the Codecontinues to recognize their union to the extent of allowingthem the tax advantages available to other married people;although there have been tax marriages, the tax divorce stillbelongs to the future.
As for entertainment, now that the writers of I.R.S. regulationshave been deprived of the far-reaching Cohan rule, they areforced to make distinctions of almost theological nicety, and theupshot of the distinctions is to put a direct premium²²⁴ on thehabit—which some people have considered all too prevalent formany years anyhow—of talking business at all hours of the dayand night, and in all kinds of company. For example,deductions are granted for the entertainment of businessassociates at night clubs, theatres, or concerts only if a“substantial and bona fide business discussion” takes placebefore, during, or after the entertainment. (One is reluctant topicture the results if businessmen take to carrying on businessdiscussions in great numbers during plays or concerts.) On theother hand, a businessman who entertains another in a “quietbusiness setting,” such as a restaurant with no floor show, mayclaim a deduction even if little or no business is actuallydiscussed, as long as the meeting has a business purpose.
Generally speaking, the noisier and more confusing ordistracting the setting, the more business talk there must be;the regulations specifically include cocktail²²⁵ parties in thenoisy-and-distracting category, and, accordingly, requireconspicuous amounts of business discussion before, during, orafter them, though a meal served to a business associate at thehost’s home may be deductible with no such discussion at all.
In the latter case, however, as the J. K. Lasser Tax Institutecautions in its popular guide “Your Income Tax,” you must “beready to prove that your motive²²⁶ … was commercial rather thansocial.” In other words, to be on the safe side, talk businessanyhow. Hellerstein has written, “Henceforth, tax men willdoubtless urge their clients to talk business at every turn, andwill ask them to admonish²²⁷ their wives not to object to shoptalk if they want to continue their accustomed style of living.”
Entertainment on an elaborate scale is discouraged in thepost-1963 rules, but, as the Lasser booklet notes, perhaps alittle jubilantly, “Congress did not specifically put into law aprovision barring lavish²³ or extravagant²²⁸ entertainment.” Instead, itdecreed that a businessman may deduct depreciation andoperating expenses on an “entertainment facility”—a yacht, ahunting lodge²²², a swimming pool, a bowling alley⁹, or an airplane,for instance—provided he uses it more than half the time forbusiness. In a booklet entitled “Expense Accounts 1963,” whichis one of many publications for the guidance of tax advisersthat are issued periodically by Commerce Clearing House, Inc.,the rule was explained by means of the following example:
A yacht is maintained … for the entertainment of customers. It is used25% of the time for relaxation²²⁹.… Since the yacht is used 75% of the timefor business purposes, it is used primarily for the furtherance of thetaxpayer’s business and 75% of the maintenance expenses … are deductibleentertainment facility expenses. If the yacht had been used only 40% forbusiness, no deduction would be allowed.
The method by which the yachtsman is to measure businesstime and pleasure time is not prescribed. Presumably, timewhen the yacht is in drydock or is in the water with only hercrew aboard would count as neither, though it might be arguedthat the owner sometimes derives²³⁰ pleasure simply fromwatching her swing at anchor. The time to be apportioned,then, must be the time when he and some guests are aboardher, and perhaps his most efficient way of complying with thelaw would be to install two stopwatches, port and starboard,one to be kept running during business cruising and the otherduring pleasure cruising. Perhaps a favoring westerly mightspeed a social cruise home an hour early, or a Septemberblow delay the last leg of a business cruise, and thus tip theseason’s business time above the crucial fifty-percent figure. Wellmight the skipper pray for such timely winds, since thedeductibility of his yacht could easily double his after-tax incomefor the year. In short, the law is nonsense.
Some experts feel that the change in T & E regulationsrepresents a gain for our society because quite a few taxpayerswho may have been inclined to fudge a bit under generalprovisions like the Cohan rule do not have the stomach or theheart to put down specific fraudulent items. But what has beengained in the way of compliance may have been lost in acertain debasement of our national life. Scarcely ever has anypart of the tax law tended so energetically to compel thecommercialization of social intercourse²³¹, or penalized²³² soparticularly the amateur spirit, which, Richard Hofstadterdeclares in his book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,”
characterized the founders²³³ of the republic. Perhaps the greatestdanger of all is that, by claiming deductions for activities thatare technically²³⁴ business but actually social—that is, by complyingwith the letter of the law—a man may cheapen his life in hisown eyes. One might argue that the founders, if they werealive today, would scornfully decline to mingle²³⁵ the social and thecommercial, the amateur and the professional, and woulddisdain to claim any but the most unmistakable expenses. But,under the present tax laws, the question would be whetherthey could afford such a lordly overpayment of taxes, or shouldeven be asked to make the choice.
IT has been maintained that the Code discriminates²³⁶ againstintellectual work, the principal evidence being that whiledepreciation may be claimed on all kinds of exhaustible physicalproperty and depletion may be claimed on natural resources,no such deductions are allowed in the case of exhaustion ofthe mental or imaginative capacities of creative artists andinventors—even though the effects of brain fag are sometimesall too apparent in the later work and incomes of suchpersons. (It has also been argued that professional athletes arediscriminated against, in that the Code does not allow fordepreciation of their bodies.) Organizations like the AuthorsLeague of America have contended, further, that the Code isunfair to authors and other creative people whose income,because of the nature of their work and the economics of itsmarketing, is apt to fluctuate wildly from year to year, so thatthey are taxed exorbitantly²³⁷ in good years and are left with toolittle to tide them over bad years. A provision of the 1964 billintended to take care of this situation provided creative artists,inventors, and other receivers of sudden large income with afour-year averaging formula to ease the tax bite of a windfallyear.
But if the Code is anti-intellectual, it is probably so onlyinadvertently—and is certainly so only inconsistently. By grantingtax-exempt status to charitable foundations, it facilitates theaward of millions of dollars a year—most of which wouldotherwise go into the government’s coffers—to scholars fortravel and living expenses while they carry out research projectsof all kinds. And by making special provisions in respect to giftsof property that has appreciated in value, it has—whetheradvertently or inadvertently—tended not only to force up theprices that painters and sculptors²³⁸ receive for their work but tochannel thousands of works out of private collections and intopublic museums. The mechanics of this process are by now sowell known that they need be merely outlined: a collector whodonates a work of art to a museum may deduct on hisincome-tax return the fair value of the work at the time of thedonation, and need pay no capital-gains tax on any increase inits value since the time he bought it. If the increase in valuehas been great and the collector’s tax bracket is very high, hemay actually come out ahead on the deal. Besides buryingsome museums under such an avalanche²³⁹ of bounty²⁴⁰ that theirstaffs are kept busy digging themselves out, these provisionshave tended to bring back into existence that lovable old figurefrom the pre-tax past, the rich dilettante²⁴¹. In recent years, somehigh-bracket people have fallen into the habit of making serialcollections—Post-Impressionists for a few years, perhaps, followedby Chinese jade²⁴², and then by modern American painting. Atthe end of each period, the collector gives away his entirecollection, and when the taxes he would otherwise have paidare calculated, the adventure is found to have cost himpractically nothing.
The low cost of high-income people’s charitable contributions,whether in the form of works of art or simply in the form ofmoney and other property, is one of the oddest fruits of theCode. Of approximately five billion dollars claimed annually asdeductible contributions on personal income-tax returns, by farthe greater part is in the form of assets of one sort or anotherthat have appreciated in value, and comes from persons withvery high incomes. The reasons can be made clear by a simpleexample: A man with a top bracket of 20 per cent who givesaway $1,000 in cash incurs²⁴³ a net cost of $800. A man with atop bracket of 60 per cent who gives away the same sum incash incurs a net cost of $400. If, instead, this samehigh-bracket man gives $1,000 in the form of stock that heoriginally bought for $200, he incurs a net cost of only $200.
It is the Code’s enthusiastic encouragement of large-scale charitythat has led to most of the cases of million-dollar-a-year menwho pay no tax at all; under one of its most peculiarprovisions, anyone whose income tax and contributionscombined have amounted to nine-tenths or more of his taxableincome for eight out of the ten preceding years is entitled byway of reward to disregard in the current year the usualrestrictions on the amount of deductible contributions, and canescape the tax entirely.
Thus the Code’s provisions often enable mere²¹⁹ fiscalmanipulation to masquerade as charity, substantiating²⁴⁴ a frequentcharge that the Code is morally muddleheaded, or worse. Theprovisions also give rise to muddleheadedness in others. Theappeal made by large fund-raising drives in recent years, forexample, has been uneasily divided between a call to goodworks and an explanation of the tax advantages to the donor²⁴⁵.
An instructive example is a commendably²⁴⁶ thorough bookletentitled “Greater Tax Savings²⁴⁷ … A Constructive²⁴⁸ Approach,”
which was used by Princeton in a large capital-funds drive.
(Similar, not to say nearly identical, booklets have been used byHarvard, Yale, and many other institutions.) “Theresponsibilities of leadership are great, particularly in an agewhen statesmen, scientists, and economists²⁴⁹ must make decisionswhich will almost certainly affect mankind for generations tocome,” the pamphlet’s foreword starts out, loftily, and goes onto explain, “The chief purpose of this booklet is to urge allprospective donors²⁵³ to give more serious thought to the mannerin which they make their gifts.… There are many different waysin which substantial gifts can be made at comparatively lowcost to the donor. It is important that prospective²⁵² donorsacquaint themselves with these opportunities.” The opportunitiesexpounded in the subsequent pages include ways of saving ontaxes through gifts of appreciated securities, industrial property,leases, royalties²⁵⁴, jewelry²⁵⁵, antiques, stock options, residences, lifeinsurance, and inventory²⁵⁶ items, and through the use of trusts(“The trust approach has great versatility”). At one point, thesuggestion is put forward that, instead of actually givinganything away, the owner of appreciated securities may wish tosell them to Princeton, for cash, at the price he originally paidfor them; this might appear to the simple-minded to be acommercial transaction, but the booklet points out, accurately,that in the eyes of the Code the difference between thesecurities’ current market value and the lower price at whichthey are sold to Princeton represents pure charity, and is fullydeductible as such. “While we have laid heavy emphasis on theimportance of careful tax planning,” the final paragraph goes,“we hope no inference will be drawn²⁵⁷ that the thought andspirit of giving should in any way be subordinated to taxconsiderations.” Indeed it should not, nor need it be; with theheavy substance of giving so deftly²⁵⁸ minimized, or actuallyremoved, its spirit can surely fly unrestrained.
ONE of the most marked traits of the Code—to bring thisransacking of its character to a close—is its complexity, and thiscomplexity is responsible for some of its most far-reaching socialeffects; it is a virtual necessity for many taxpayers to seekprofessional help if they want to minimize their taxes legally,and since first-rate advice is expensive and in short supply, therich are thereby given still another advantage over the poor,and the Code becomes more undemocratic in its action than itis in its provisions. (And the fact that fees for tax advice arethemselves deductible means that tax advice is one more itemon the long list of things that cost less and less to those whohave more and more.) All the free projects of taxpayereducation and taxpayer assistance offered by the InternalRevenue Service—and they are extensive and wellmeant—cannot begin to compete with the paid services of agood independent tax expert, if only because the I.R.S., whosefirst duty is to collect revenue, is involved in an obvious conflictof interest when it sets about explaining to people how to avoidtaxes. The fact that about half of all the revenue derived²⁵⁹ fromindividual returns for 1960 came from adjusted gross incomesof $9,000 or less is not attributable entirely to provisions of theCode; in part, it results from the fact that low-income taxpayerscannot afford to be shown how to pay less.
The huge army of people who give tax advice—“practitioners,”
they are called in the trade—is a strange and disturbing sideeffect of the Code’s complexity. The exact size of this army isunknown, but there are a few guideposts. By a recent countsome eighty thousand persons, most of them lawyers,accountants, and former I.R.S. employees, held cards, grantedby the Treasury Department, that officially entitle them topractice the trade of tax adviser and to appear as such beforethe I.R.S.; in addition, there is an uncounted host of unlicensed,and often unqualified, persons who prepare tax returns for afee—a service that anyone may legally perform. As for lawyers,the undisputed plutocrats, if not the undisputed aristocrats²⁶⁰, ofthe tax-advice industry, there is scarcely a lawyer in thecountry who is not concerned with taxes at one time oranother during a year’s practice, and every year there aremore lawyers who are concerned with nothing else. TheAmerican Bar Association’s taxation section, composed mostly ofnothing-but-tax lawyers, has some nine thousand members; inthe typical large New York law firm one out of five lawyersdevotes all of his time to tax matters; and the New YorkUniversity Law School’s tax department, an enormous broodhen for the hatching of tax lawyers, is larger than the whole ofan average law school. The brains that go into tax avoidance,which are generally recognized as including some of the bestlegal brains extant, constitute a wasted national resource, it iswidely contended—and this contention²⁶¹ is cheerfully upheld bysome leading tax lawyers, who seem only too glad to affirm,first, that their mental capacities are indeed exceptional, and,second, that these capacities are indeed being squandered²⁶² ontrivia. “The law has its cycles,” one of them explained recently.
“In the United States, the big thing until about 1890 wasproperty law. Then came a period when it was corporation law,and now it’s various specialties²⁶³, of which the most important istaxes. I’m perfectly willing to admit that I’m engaged in workthat has a limited social value. After all, what are we talkingabout when we talk about tax law? At best, only the questionof what an individual or a corporation should fairly pay insupport of the government. All right, why do I do tax work?
In the first place, it’s a fascinating intellectual game—along withlitigation, probably the most intellectually challenging branch ofthe law as it is now practiced. In the second place, althoughit’s specialized²⁶⁴ in one sense, in another sense it isn’t. It cutsthrough every field of law. One day you may be working witha Hollywood producer, the next day with a big real-estate man,the next with a corporation executive. In the third place, it’s ahighly lucrative²⁶⁵ field.”
HYPOCRITICALLY egalitarian on the surface and systematicallyoligarchic underneath²⁶⁶, unconscionably complicated, whimsicallydiscriminatory, specious²⁶⁷ in its reasoning, pettifogging in itslanguage, demoralizing to charity, an enemy of discourse²⁶⁸, apromoter of shop talk, a squanderer²⁶⁹ of talent, a rock ofsupport to the property owner but a weighty onus²⁷⁰ to theunderpaid, an inconstant friend to the artist and scholar—if thenational mirror-image is all these things, it has its good pointsas well. Certainly no conceivable income-tax law could pleaseeverybody, and probably no equitable one could entirely pleaseanybody; Louis Eisenstein notes in his book “The Ideologies²⁷¹ ofTaxation,” “Taxes are a changing product of the earnest effortto have others pay them.” With the exception of its moreflagrant special-interest provisions, the Code seems to be asincerely written document—at worst misguided—that is aimed atcollecting unprecedented²⁷² amounts of money from anunprecedentedly complex society in the fairest possible way, atencouraging the national economy, and at promoting worthyundertakings. When it is intelligently and conscientiouslyadministered, as it has been of late, our national income-tax lawis quite possibly as equitable as any in the world.
But to enact⁴⁵ an unsatisfactory law and then try tocompensate for its shortcomings by good administration is,clearly, an absurd procedure. One solution that is morelogical—to abolish the income tax—is proposed chiefly by somemembers of the radical²⁷³ right, who consider any income taxSocialistic or Communistic, and who would have the federalgovernment simply stop spending money, though abolition isalso advanced, as a theoretical ideal rather than as a practicalpossibility, by certain economists who are looking around foralternative ways of raising at least a significant fraction of thesums now produced by the income tax. One such alternative isa value-added tax, under which manufacturers, wholesalers, andretailers would be taxed on the difference between the value ofthe goods they bought and that of the goods they sold; amongthe advantages claimed for it are that it would spread the taxburden more evenly through the productive process than abusiness-income tax does, and that it would enable thegovernment to get its money sooner. Several countries, includingFrance and Germany, have value-added taxes, though assupplements rather than alternatives to income taxes, but nofederal tax of the sort is more than remotely in prospect²⁵¹ inthis country. Other suggested means of lightening the burden ofthe income tax are to increase the number of items subject toexcise taxes, and apply a uniform rate to them, so as to createwhat would amount to a federal sales tax; to increase usertaxes, such as tolls²⁷⁴ on federally owned bridges and recreationfacilities; and to enact a law permitting federal lotteries²⁷⁵, like thelotteries that were permitted from colonial times up to 1895,which helped finance such projects as the building of Harvard,the fighting of the Revolutionary War, and the building of manyschools, bridges, canals, and roads. One obvious disadvantage ofall these schemes is that they would collect revenue withrelatively little regard to ability to pay, and for this reason orothers none of them stand a chance of being enacted in theforeseeable future.
A special favorite of theoreticians, but of hardly anyone else, issomething called the expenditure²⁷⁶ tax—the taxing of individualson the basis of their total annual expenditures²⁷⁷ rather than ontheir income. The proponents²⁷⁹ of this tax—diehard adherents²⁸⁰ ofthe economics of scarcity—argue that it would have the primaryvirtue of simplicity²⁸¹; that it would have the beneficial effect ofencouraging savings; that it would be fairer than the incometax, because it would tax what people took out of the economyrather than what they put into it; and that it would give thegovernment a particularly handy control instrument with whichto keep the national economy on an even keel. Its opponentscontend that it wouldn’t really be simple at all, and would beridiculously easy to evade¹³⁹; that it would cause the rich tobecome richer, and doubtless stingier as well; and, finally, thatby putting a penalty on spending it would promote depression.
In any event, both sides concede that its enactment in theUnited States is not now politically practicable. An expendituretax was seriously proposed for the United States by Secretaryof the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., in 1942, and forBritain by a Cambridge economist²⁵⁰ (later a special adviser to theNational Treasury) named Nicholas Kaldor, in 1951, thoughneither proponent²⁷⁸ asked for repeal of the income tax. Bothproposals were all but unanimously hooted down. “Theexpenditure tax is a beautiful thing to contemplate,” one of itsadmirers said recently. “It would avoid almost all the pitfalls²⁸² ofthe income tax. But it’s a dream.” And so it is, in the Westernworld; such a tax has been put in effect only in India andCeylon.
With no feasible substitute in sight, then, the income taxseems to be here to stay, and any hope for better taxationseems to lie in its reform. Since one of the Code’s chief flawsis its complexity, reform might well start with that. Efforts atsimplification have been made with regularity²⁸³ since 1943, whenSecretary Morgenthau set up a committee to study the subject,and there have been occasional small successes; simplifiedinstructions, for example, and a shortened form for taxpayerswho wish to itemize deductions but whose affairs are relativelyuncomplicated were both introduced during the Kennedyadministration. Obviously, though, these were mereguerrilla-skirmish victories. One obstacle to any victory moresweeping is the fact that many of the Code’s complexities wereintroduced in no interest other than that of fairness to all, andapparently cannot be removed without sacrificing fairness. Theevolution of the special family-support provisions provides astriking example of how the quest for equity²⁸⁴ sometimes leadsstraight to complexity. Up to 1948, the fact that some stateshad and some didn’t have community-property laws resulted inan advantage to married couples in the community-propertystates; those couples, and those couples only, were allowed tobe taxed as if their total income were divided equally betweenthem, even though one spouse²⁸⁵ might actually have a highincome and the other none at all. To correct this clear-cutinequity, the federal Code was modified to extend theincome-dividing privilege to all married persons. Even apartfrom the resulting discrimination against single persons withoutdependents—which remains enshrined and unchallenged in theCode today—this correction of one inequity led to the creationof another, the correction of which led to still another; beforethe Chinese-box sequence was played out, account had beentaken of the legitimate²⁸⁶ special problems of persons who hadfamily responsibilities although they were not married, then ofworking wives with expenses for child care during businesshours, and then of widows and widowers²⁸⁷. And each changemade the Code more complex.
The loopholes are another matter. In their case, complexityserves not equity but its opposite, and their persistent²⁸⁸ survivalconstitutes a puzzling paradox⁹⁹; in a system under which themajority presumably makes the laws, tax provisions thatblatantly favor tiny minorities over everybody else would seemto represent the civil-rights principle run wild—a kind ofanti-discrimination program for the protection of millionaires.
The process by which new tax legislation comes into being—anoriginal proposal from the Treasury Department or some othersource, passage in turn by the House Ways and MeansCommittee, the whole House, the Senate Finance Committee,and the whole Senate, followed by the working out of aHouse-Senate compromise by a conference committee, followedby repassage by the House and the Senate and, finally,followed by signing by the President—is indeed a tortuous²⁸⁹ one,at any stage of which a bill may be killed or shelved. However,though the public has plenty of opportunity to protestspecial-interest provisions, what public pressure there is is aptto be greater in favor of them than against them. In the bookon tax loopholes called “The Great Treasury Raid,” Philip M.
Stern points out several forces that seem to him to workagainst the enactment of tax-reform measures, among them theskill, power, and organization of the anti-reform lobbies; thediffuseness and political impotence of the pro-reform forceswithin the government; and the indifference²⁹⁰ of the generalpublic, which expresses practically no enthusiasm for tax reformthrough letters to congressmen or by any other means,perhaps in large part because it is stunned²⁹¹ intoincomprehension and consequent silence by the mind-bogglingtechnicality of the whole subject. In this sense, the Code’scomplexity is its impenetrable elephant hide. Thus the TreasuryDepartment, which, as the agency charged with collecting federalrevenues, has a natural interest in tax reform, is often left,along with a handful of reform-minded legislators, like SenatorsPaul H. Douglas of Illinois, Albert Gore²⁹² of Tennessee, andEugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota, on a lonely and indefensiblesalient.
OPTIMISTS²⁹³ believe that some “point of crisis” will eventuallycause specially favored groups to look beyond their selfishinterests, and the rest of the country to overcome its passivity,to such an extent that the income tax will come to give back amore flattering picture of the country than it does now. Whenthis will happen, if ever, they do not specify²⁹⁴. But the generalshape of the picture hoped for by some of those who caremost about it is known. The ideal income tax envisioned forthe far future by many reformers would be characterized by ashort and simple Code with comparatively low rates and with aminimum of exceptions to them. In its main structural²⁹⁵ features,this ideal tax would bear a marked resemblance to the 1913income tax—the first ever to be put in effect in the UnitedStates in peacetime. So if the unattainable visions of todayshould eventually materialize, the income tax would be justabout back where it started.

1 manifestations   

n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式）

参考例句：

• These were manifestations of the darker side of his character. 这些是他性格阴暗面的表现。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To be wordly-wise and play safe is one of the manifestations of liberalism. 明哲保身是自由主义的表现之一。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

3 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

4 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

5 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

6 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

7 proprietors   

n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These little proprietors of businesses are lords indeed on their own ground. 这些小业主们，在他们自己的行当中，就是真正的至高无上的统治者。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Many proprietors try to furnish their hotels with antiques. 许多经营者都想用古董装饰他们的酒店。 来自辞典例句

8 bowling   

n.保龄球运动

参考例句：

• Bowling is a popular sport with young and old.保龄球是老少都爱的运动。
• Which sport do you 1ike most,golf or bowling?你最喜欢什么运动，高尔夫还是保龄球？

9 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

10 humdrum   

adj.单调的，乏味的

参考例句：

• Their lives consist of the humdrum activities of everyday existence.他们的生活由日常生存的平凡活动所构成。
• The accountant said it was the most humdrum day that she had ever passed.会计师说这是她所度过的最无聊的一天。

11 reconciliation   

n.和解，和谐，一致

参考例句：

• He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
• Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。

12 abjured   

v.发誓放弃( abjure的过去式和过去分词 )；郑重放弃（意见）；宣布撤回（声明等）；避免

参考例句：

• She abjured her beliefs. 她放弃了她的信仰。 来自互联网
• TAe man abjured his religion. 那个人发誓放弃他的宗教信仰。 来自互联网

13 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

14 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

15 speculative   

adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的

参考例句：

• Much of our information is speculative.我们的许多信息是带推测性的。
• The report is highly speculative and should be ignored.那个报道推测的成分很大，不应理会。

16 dictated   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• He dictated a letter to his secretary. 他向秘书口授信稿。
• No person of a strong character likes to be dictated to. 没有一个个性强的人愿受人使唤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

18 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

19 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

20 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

21 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

22 lavishing   

v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• With the private sector sitting on its hands, Western governments are lavishing subsidies on CCS. 只有一些私营部门使用碳截存技术，西方政府在这项技术上挥霍了不少的津贴。 来自互联网
• We were lavishing a little respect on China, which always works well with China. 我们给予中国一点尊重，而这样做对中国来说，通常都很受用。 来自互联网

23 lavish   

adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍

参考例句：

• He despised people who were lavish with their praises.他看不起那些阿谀奉承的人。
• The sets and costumes are lavish.布景和服装极尽奢华。

24 jolted   

（使）摇动， （使）震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• She was jolted out of her reverie as the door opened. 门一开就把她从幻想中惊醒。

25 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

26 plaque   

n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板

参考例句：

• There is a commemorative plaque to the artist in the village hall.村公所里有一块纪念该艺术家的牌匾。
• Some Latin words were engraved on the plaque. 牌匾上刻着些拉丁文。

27 affixed   

adj.[医]附着的，附着的v.附加( affix的过去式和过去分词 )；粘贴；加以；盖（印章）

参考例句：

• The label should be firmly affixed to the package. 这张标签应该牢牢地贴在包裹上。
• He affixed the sign to the wall. 他将标记贴到墙上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

29 deduct   

vt.扣除，减去

参考例句：

• You can deduct the twenty - five cents out of my allowance.你可在我的零用钱里扣去二角五分钱。
• On condition of your signing this contract,I will deduct a percentage.如果你在这份合同上签字，我就会给你减免一个百分比。

30 equitable   

adj.公平的；公正的

参考例句：

• This is an equitable solution to the dispute. 这是对该项争议的公正解决。
• Paying a person what he has earned is equitable. 酬其应得,乃公平之事。

31 taxpayer   

n.纳税人

参考例句：

• The new scheme will run off with a lot of the taxpayer's money.这项新计划将用去纳税人许多钱。
• The taxpayer are unfavourably disposed towards the recent tax increase.纳税者对最近的增加税收十分反感。

32 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

33 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

34 evasion   

n.逃避，偷漏(税)

参考例句：

• The movie star is in prison for tax evasion.那位影星因为逃税而坐牢。
• The act was passed as a safeguard against tax evasion.这项法案旨在防止逃税行为。

35 labyrinthine   

adj.如迷宫的；复杂的

参考例句：

• His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink.他的思绪，早滑进到双重思想迷宫般的世界里去。
• The streets of the Old City are narrow and labyrinthine.老城区的街道狭促曲折，好似迷宫一般。

36 statute   

n.成文法，法令，法规；章程，规则，条例

参考例句：

• Protection for the consumer is laid down by statute.保障消费者利益已在法令里作了规定。
• The next section will consider this environmental statute in detail.下一部分将详细论述环境法令的问题。

37 defenders   

n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者

参考例句：

• The defenders were outnumbered and had to give in. 抵抗者寡不敌众，只能投降。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After hard fighting,the defenders were still masters of the city. 守军经过奋战仍然控制着城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》

38 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

39 knowledgeable   

adj.知识渊博的；有见识的

参考例句：

• He's quite knowledgeable about the theatre.他对戏剧很有心得。
• He made some knowledgeable remarks at the meeting.他在会上的发言颇有见地。

40 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

41 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

42 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

43 treasury   

n.宝库；国库，金库；文库

参考例句：

• The Treasury was opposed in principle to the proposals.财政部原则上反对这些提案。
• This book is a treasury of useful information.这本书是有价值的信息宝库。

44 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

45 enact   

vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演

参考例句：

• The U.S. Congress has exclusive authority to enact federal legislation.美国国会是唯一有权颁布联邦法律的。
• For example,a country can enact laws and economic policies to attract foreign investment fairly quickly.例如一个国家可以很快颁布吸引外资的法令和经济政策。

46 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

47 omission   

n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长

参考例句：

• The omission of the girls was unfair.把女孩排除在外是不公平的。
• The omission of this chapter from the third edition was a gross oversight.第三版漏印这一章是个大疏忽。

48 elegance   

n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙

参考例句：

• The furnishings in the room imparted an air of elegance.这个房间的家具带给这房间一种优雅的气氛。
• John has been known for his sartorial elegance.约翰因为衣着讲究而出名。

49 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

50 taxation   

n.征税，税收，税金

参考例句：

• He made a number of simplifications in the taxation system.他在税制上作了一些简化。
• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。

51 withered   

adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

52 corrupt   

v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的

参考例句：

• The newspaper alleged the mayor's corrupt practices.那家报纸断言市长有舞弊行为。
• This judge is corrupt.这个法官贪污。

53 degenerated   

衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The march degenerated into a riot. 示威游行变成了暴动。
• The wide paved road degenerated into a narrow bumpy track. 铺好的宽阔道路渐渐变窄，成了一条崎岖不平的小径。

54 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

55 fervor   

n.热诚；热心；炽热

参考例句：

• They were concerned only with their own religious fervor.他们只关心自己的宗教热诚。
• The speech aroused nationalist fervor.这个演讲喚起了民族主义热情。

56 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

57 spate   

n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵

参考例句：

• Police are investigating a spate of burglaries in the area.警察正在调查这一地区发生的大量盗窃案。
• Refugees crossed the border in full spate.难民大量地越过了边境。

58 repealed   

撤销，废除( repeal的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The Labour Party repealed the Act. 工党废除了那项法令。
• The legislature repealed the unpopular Rent Act. 立法机关废除了不得人心的租借法案。

59 repeal   

n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消

参考例句：

• He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
• He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由，赞成废除该法令。

60 withholding   

扣缴税款

参考例句：

• She was accused of withholding information from the police. 她被指控对警方知情不报。
• The judge suspected the witness was withholding information. 法官怀疑见证人在隐瞒情况。

61 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

62 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

63 docility   

n.容易教，易驾驶，驯服

参考例句：

• He was trying to plant the seed of revolt, arouse that placid peasant docility. 他想撒下反叛的种子，唤醒这个安分驯良的农民的觉悟。 来自辞典例句
• With unusual docility, Nancy stood up and followed him as he left the newsroom. 南希以难得的顺从站起身来，尾随着他离开了新闻编辑室。 来自辞典例句

64 laggard   

n.落后者；adj.缓慢的，落后的

参考例句：

• In village,the laggard living condition must be improved.在乡村落后的生活条件必须被改善。
• Businesshas to some degree been a laggard in this process.商业在这个进程中已经慢了一拍。

65 inveterate   

adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的

参考例句：

• Hitler was not only an avid reader but also an inveterate underliner.希特勒不仅酷爱读书，还有写写划划的习惯。
• It is hard for an inveterate smoker to give up tobacco.要一位有多年烟瘾的烟民戒烟是困难的。

66 assessments   

n.评估( assessment的名词复数 )；评价；（应偿付金额的）估定；（为征税对财产所作的）估价

参考例句：

• He was shrewd in his personal assessments. 他总能对人作出精明的评价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Surveys show about two-thirds use such assessments, while half employ personality tests. 调查表明，约有三分之二的公司采用了这种测评；而一半的公司则采用工作人员个人品质测试。 来自百科语句

67 hooted   

（使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• An owl hooted nearby. 一只猫头鹰在附近啼叫。
• The crowd hooted and jeered at the speaker. 群众向那演讲人发出轻蔑的叫嚣和嘲笑。

68 stimulus   

n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物

参考例句：

• Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
• Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。

69 prodded   

v.刺，戳( prod的过去式和过去分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳

参考例句：

• She prodded him in the ribs to wake him up. 她用手指杵他的肋部把他叫醒。
• He prodded at the plate of fish with his fork. 他拿叉子戳弄着那盘鱼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

70 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

71 territorial   

adj.领土的，领地的

参考例句：

• The country is fighting to preserve its territorial integrity.该国在为保持领土的完整而进行斗争。
• They were not allowed to fish in our territorial waters.不允许他们在我国领海捕鱼。

72 amendments   

（法律、文件的）改动( amendment的名词复数 )； 修正案； 修改； （美国宪法的）修正案

参考例句：

• The committee does not adequately consult others when drafting amendments. 委员会在起草修正案时没有充分征求他人的意见。
• Please propose amendments and addenda to the first draft of the document. 请对这个文件的初稿提出修改和补充意见。

73 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

74 undue   

adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的

参考例句：

• Don't treat the matter with undue haste.不要过急地处理此事。
• It would be wise not to give undue importance to his criticisms.最好不要过分看重他的批评。

75 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

76 agitator   

n.鼓动者；搅拌器

参考例句：

• Hitler's just a self-educated street agitator.希特勒无非是个自学出身的街头煽动家罢了。
• Mona had watched him grow into an arrogant political agitator.莫娜瞧着他成长为一个高傲的政治鼓动家。

77 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

78 shrill   

adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫

参考例句：

• Whistles began to shrill outside the barn.哨声开始在谷仓外面尖叫。
• The shrill ringing of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.刺耳的铃声打散了小汽艇的牌局。

79 anarchists   

无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Anarchists demand the destruction of structures of oppression including the country itself. "无政府主义者要求摧毁包括国家本身在内的压迫人民的组织。
• Unsurprisingly, Ms Baburova had a soft spot for anarchists. 没什么奇怪的，巴布罗娃女士倾向于无政府主义。

80 Congressman   

n.（美）国会议员

参考例句：

• He related several anecdotes about his first years as a congressman.他讲述自己初任议员那几年的几则轶事。
• The congressman is meditating a reply to his critics.这位国会议员正在考虑给他的批评者一个答复。

81 odious   

adj.可憎的，讨厌的

参考例句：

• The judge described the crime as odious.法官称这一罪行令人发指。
• His character could best be described as odious.他的人格用可憎来形容最贴切。

82 perjury   

n.伪证；伪证罪

参考例句：

• You'll be punished if you procure the witness to commit perjury.如果你诱使证人作伪证，你要受罚的。
• She appeared in court on a perjury charge.她因被指控做了伪证而出庭受审。

83 necessitate   

v.使成为必要，需要

参考例句：

• Your proposal would necessitate changing our plans.你的提议可能使我们的计划必须变更。
• The conversion will necessitate the complete rebuilding of the interior.转变就必需完善内部重建。

84 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

85 apportioned   

vt.分摊，分配（apportion的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• They apportioned the land among members of the family. 他们把土地分给了家中各人。
• The group leader apportioned them the duties for the week. 组长给他们分派了这星期的任务。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

86 ironic   

adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的

参考例句：

• That is a summary and ironic end.那是一个具有概括性和讽刺意味的结局。
• People used to call me Mr Popularity at high school,but they were being ironic.人们中学时常把我称作“万人迷先生”，但他们是在挖苦我。

87 levy   

n.征收税或其他款项，征收额

参考例句：

• They levy a tax on him.他们向他征税。
• A direct food levy was imposed by the local government.地方政府征收了食品税。

88 ratified   

v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified. 条约没有得到批准，因此被宣布无效。
• The treaty was ratified by all the member states. 这个条约得到了所有成员国的批准。

89 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

90 exemptions   

n.（义务等的）免除( exemption的名词复数 )；免（税）；（收入中的）免税额

参考例句：

• The exemptions for interpretive rules, policy statements, and procedural rules have just been discussed. 有关解释性规则、政策说明和程序规则的免责我们刚刚讨论过。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• A: The regulation outlines specific exemptions for some WPM. 答：该规定概述了某些木质包装材料的特定的例外情形。 来自互联网

91 exemption   

n.豁免，免税额，免除

参考例句：

• You may be able to apply for exemption from local taxes.你可能符合资格申请免除地方税。
• These goods are subject to exemption from tax.这些货物可以免税。

92 stimulated   

a.刺激的

参考例句：

• The exhibition has stimulated interest in her work. 展览增进了人们对她作品的兴趣。
• The award has stimulated her into working still harder. 奖金促使她更加努力地工作。

93 intervals   

n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息

参考例句：

• The forecast said there would be sunny intervals and showers. 预报间晴，有阵雨。
• Meetings take place at fortnightly intervals. 每两周开一次会。

94 depletion   

n.耗尽，枯竭

参考例句：

• Increased consumption of water has led to rapid depletion of groundwater reserves.用水量的增加导致了地下水贮备迅速枯竭。
• Farmers should rotate crops every season to prevent depletion of the soil.农夫每季应该要轮耕，以免耗尽土壤。

95 deducting   

v.扣除，减去( deduct的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Deducting drop size and velocity from circular blood stains. 如何从循环的血液中降低血滴的大小和速度。 来自电影对白
• Ordinary shareholders receive dividend from profit after deducting the preference shares dividend. 普通股股东可获派剩馀的盈利为股息。 来自互联网

96 deducted   

v.扣除，减去( deduct的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The cost of your uniform will be deducted from your wages. 制服费将从你的工资中扣除。
• The cost of the breakages will be deducted from your pay. 损坏东西的费用将从你的工资中扣除。 来自《简明英汉词典》

97 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

98 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

99 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

100 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

101 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

102 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

103 laborers   

n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工

参考例句：

• Laborers were trained to handle 50-ton compactors and giant cranes. 工人们接受操作五十吨压土机和巨型起重机的训练。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. 雇佣劳动完全是建立在工人的自相竞争之上的。 来自英汉非文学 - 共产党宣言

104 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

105 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

106 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

107 monarchs   

君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Monarchs ruled England for centuries. 世袭君主统治英格兰有许多世纪。
• Serving six monarchs of his native Great Britain, he has served all men's freedom and dignity. 他在大不列颠本国为六位君王服务，也为全人类的自由和尊严服务。 来自演讲部分

108 benevolent   

adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的

参考例句：

• His benevolent nature prevented him from refusing any beggar who accosted him.他乐善好施的本性使他不会拒绝走上前向他行乞的任何一个乞丐。
• He was a benevolent old man and he wouldn't hurt a fly.他是一个仁慈的老人，连只苍蝇都不愿伤害。

109 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

110 practitioners   

n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师）

参考例句：

• one of the greatest practitioners of science fiction 最了不起的科幻小说家之一
• The technique is experimental, but the list of its practitioners is growing. 这种技术是试验性的，但是采用它的人正在增加。 来自辞典例句

111 reminders   

n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 )；提醒…的东西；（告知该做某事的）通知单；提示信

参考例句：

• The film evokes chilling reminders of the war. 这部电影使人们回忆起战争的可怕场景。
• The strike has delayed the mailing of tax reminders. 罢工耽搁了催税单的投寄。

112 feat   

n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的

参考例句：

• Man's first landing on the moon was a feat of great daring.人类首次登月是一个勇敢的壮举。
• He received a medal for his heroic feat.他因其英雄业绩而获得一枚勋章。

113 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

114 dividends   

红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金

参考例句：

• Nothing pays richer dividends than magnanimity. 没有什么比宽宏大量更能得到厚报。
• Their decision five years ago to computerise the company is now paying dividends. 五年前他们作出的使公司电脑化的决定现在正产生出效益。

115 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

116 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

117 automating   

（使）自动化( automate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Have you ever thought about automating any part of your business? 你有没有想过把你公司的某个部门自动化？
• We are in process of automating the production department. 我们正在对生产部门实行自动化。

118 collate   

vt.(仔细)核对，对照；(书籍装订前)整理

参考例句：

• They have begun to collate their own statistics on racial abuse. 他们已经开始整理自己有关种族歧视的统计数据。
• You may collate the latter with the earlier edition. 你可将新版与旧版相对照。

119 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

120 audits   

n.审计，查账( audit的名词复数 )v.审计，查账( audit的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Requires that use of all bond funds is subject to independent audits. 需要使用的所有债券基金是受独立审计。 来自互联网
• Support the locations during customer-visits, audits and quality-improvement programs. 支持客户参观，稽核和提高品质等项目。 来自互联网

121 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

122 extrovert   

n.性格外向的人

参考例句：

• A good salesman is usually an extrovert,who likes to mingle with people.一个好的推销员通常很外向，喜欢和人们交往。
• Do you think you're an extrovert or introvert?你认为你是个性外向的人还是个性内向的人？

123 interim   

adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间

参考例句：

• The government is taking interim measures to help those in immediate need.政府正在采取临时措施帮助那些有立即需要的人。
• It may turn out to be an interim technology.这可能只是个过渡技术。

124 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

125 commissioners   

n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官

参考例句：

• The Commissioners of Inland Revenue control British national taxes. 国家税收委员管理英国全国的税收。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The SEC has five commissioners who are appointed by the president. 证券交易委员会有５名委员，是由总统任命的。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

126 evading   

逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• Segmentation of a project is one means of evading NEPA. 把某一工程进行分割，是回避《国家环境政策法》的一种手段。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Too many companies, she says, are evading the issue. 她说太多公司都在回避这个问题。

127 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

128 abolition   

n.废除，取消

参考例句：

• They declared for the abolition of slavery.他们声明赞成废除奴隶制度。
• The abolition of the monarchy was part of their price.废除君主制是他们的其中一部分条件。

129 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

130 quotas   

（正式限定的）定量( quota的名词复数 )； 定额； 指标； 摊派

参考例句：

• In fulfilling the production quotas, John made rings round all his fellow workers. 约翰完成生产定额大大超过他的同事们。
• Quotas of the means of production are allocated by the higher administrative bodies to the lower ones. 物资指标按隶属关系分配。

131 echelons   

n.（机构中的）等级，阶层( echelon的名词复数 )；（军舰、士兵、飞机等的）梯形编队

参考例句：

• Officers were drawn largely from the top echelons of society. 这些官员大都来自社会上层。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Except in the higher echelons, extensive classification has no place in the classification of vegetation. 除高阶类级之外，外延分类在植物分类中还是没有地位的。 来自辞典例句

132 cavil   

v.挑毛病，吹毛求疵

参考例句：

• A carper will cavil at anything.爱挑剔的人对什么都挑剔。
• Even he could find nothing to cavil about.连他都挑不出什么毛病来。

133 compliance   

n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从

参考例句：

• I was surprised by his compliance with these terms.我对他竟然依从了这些条件而感到吃惊。
• She gave up the idea in compliance with his desire.她顺从他的愿望而放弃自己的主意。

134 prosecution   

n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营

参考例句：

• The Smiths brought a prosecution against the organizers.史密斯家对组织者们提出起诉。
• He attempts to rebut the assertion made by the prosecution witness.他试图反驳原告方证人所作的断言。

135 offenders   

n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 )；犯规者；罪犯；妨害…的人（或事物）

参考例句：

• Long prison sentences can be a very effective deterrent for offenders. 判处长期徒刑可对违法者起到强有力的威慑作用。
• Purposeful work is an important part of the regime for young offenders. 使从事有意义的劳动是管理少年犯的重要方法。

136 manifesto   

n.宣言，声明

参考例句：

• I was involved in the preparation of Labour's manifesto.我参与了工党宣言的起草工作。
• His manifesto promised measures to protect them.他在宣言里保证要为他们采取保护措施。

137 prosecuting   

检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师

参考例句：

• The witness was cross-examined by the prosecuting counsel. 证人接受控方律师的盘问。
• Every point made by the prosecuting attorney was telling. 检查官提出的每一点都是有力的。

138 evader   

逃避者，逃避物

参考例句：

• This new law amounts to a tax evader's charter. 这项新法律简直成了为逃税者开的许可证。

139 evade   

vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避

参考例句：

• He tried to evade the embarrassing question.他企图回避这令人难堪的问题。
• You are in charge of the job.How could you evade the issue?你是负责人，你怎么能对这个问题不置可否？

140 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

141 legislative   

n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的

参考例句：

• Congress is the legislative branch of the U.S. government.国会是美国政府的立法部门。
• Today's hearing was just the first step in the legislative process.今天的听证会只是展开立法程序的第一步。

142 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

143 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

144 lurk   

n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏

参考例句：

• Dangers lurk in the path of wilderness.在这条荒野的小路上隐伏着危险。
• He thought he saw someone lurking above the chamber during the address.他觉得自己看见有人在演讲时潜藏在会议厅顶上。

145 exhorted   

v.劝告，劝说( exhort的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The party leader exhorted his members to start preparing for government. 该党领袖敦促党员着手准备筹建政府。
• He exhorted his elder. 他规劝长辈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

146 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

147 candid   

adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的

参考例句：

• I cannot but hope the candid reader will give some allowance for it.我只有希望公正的读者多少包涵一些。
• He is quite candid with his friends.他对朋友相当坦诚。

148 philosophically   

adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地

参考例句：

• He added philosophically that one should adapt oneself to the changed conditions. 他富于哲理地补充说，一个人应该适应变化了的情况。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Harry took his rejection philosophically. 哈里达观地看待自己被拒的事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

149 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

150 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

151 elation   

n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意

参考例句：

• She showed her elation at having finally achieved her ambition.最终实现了抱负，她显得十分高兴。
• His supporters have reacted to the news with elation.他的支持者听到那条消息后兴高采烈。

152 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

153 initiate   

vt.开始，创始，发动；启蒙，使入门；引入

参考例句：

• A language teacher should initiate pupils into the elements of grammar.语言老师应该把基本语法教给学生。
• They wanted to initiate a discussion on economics.他们想启动一次经济学讨论。

154 enactment   

n.演出，担任…角色；制订，通过

参考例句：

• Enactment refers to action.演出指行为的表演。
• We support the call for the enactment of a Bill of Rights.我们支持要求通过《权利法案》的呼声。

155 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

156 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

157 tyrant   

n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人

参考例句：

• The country was ruled by a despotic tyrant.该国处在一个专制暴君的统治之下。
• The tyrant was deaf to the entreaties of the slaves.暴君听不到奴隶们的哀鸣。

158 latitude   

n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区

参考例句：

• The latitude of the island is 20 degrees south.该岛的纬度是南纬20度。
• The two cities are at approximately the same latitude.这两个城市差不多位于同一纬度上。

159 rigidity   

adj.钢性，坚硬

参考例句：

• The rigidity of the metal caused it to crack.这金属因刚度强而产生裂纹。
• He deplored the rigidity of her views.他痛感她的观点僵化。

160 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

161 complexities   

复杂性(complexity的名词复数)； 复杂的事物

参考例句：

• The complexities of life bothered him. 生活的复杂使他困惑。
• The complexities of life bothered me. 生活的杂乱事儿使我心烦。

162 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

163 deductions   

扣除( deduction的名词复数 )； 结论； 扣除的量； 推演

参考例句：

• Many of the older officers trusted agents sightings more than cryptanalysts'deductions. 许多年纪比较大的军官往往相信特务的发现，而不怎么相信密码分析员的推断。
• You know how you rush at things,jump to conclusions without proper deductions. 你知道你处理问题是多么仓促，毫无合适的演绎就仓促下结论。

164 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

165 mused   

v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事）

参考例句：

• \"I wonder if I shall ever see them again, \"he mused. “我不知道是否还可以再见到他们，”他沉思自问。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• \"Where are we going from here?\" mused one of Rutherford's guests. 卢瑟福的一位客人忍不住说道：‘我们这是在干什么？” 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

166 stint   

v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事

参考例句：

• He lavished money on his children without stint.他在孩子们身上花钱毫不吝惜。
• We hope that you will not stint your criticism.我们希望您不吝指教。

167 vitality   

n.活力，生命力，效力

参考例句：

• He came back from his holiday bursting with vitality and good health.他度假归来之后，身强体壮，充满活力。
• He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。

168 proprietary   

n.所有权，所有的；独占的；业主

参考例句：

• We had to take action to protect the proprietary technology.我们必须采取措施保护专利技术。
• Proprietary right is the foundation of jus rerem.所有权是物权法之根基。

169 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

170 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

171 competence   

n.能力，胜任，称职

参考例句：

• This mess is a poor reflection on his competence.这种混乱情况说明他难当此任。
• These are matters within the competence of the court.这些是法院权限以内的事。

172 hesitation   

n.犹豫，踌躇

参考例句：

• After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天，他终于直说了。
• There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。

173 endorsing   

v.赞同( endorse的现在分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• Yet Communist leaders are also publicly endorsing religion in an unprecedented way. 不过，共产党领导层对宗教信仰的公开认可也是以前不曾有过的。 来自互联网
• Connecticut Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman is endorsing Republican Senator John McCain. 康涅狄格州独立派参议员约瑟夫。列波曼将会票选共和议员约翰。麦凯恩。 来自互联网

174 diplomat   

n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人

参考例句：

• The diplomat threw in a joke, and the tension was instantly relieved.那位外交官插进一个笑话，紧张的气氛顿时缓和下来。
• He served as a diplomat in Russia before the war.战前他在俄罗斯当外交官。

175 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

176 violations   

违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸

参考例句：

• This is one of the commonest traffic violations. 这是常见的违反交通规则之例。
• These violations of the code must cease forthwith. 这些违犯法规的行为必须立即停止。

177 outlawry   

宣布非法，非法化，放逐

参考例句：

178 frailties   

n.脆弱( frailty的名词复数 )；虚弱；（性格或行为上的）弱点；缺点

参考例句：

• The fact indicates the economic frailties of this type of farming. 这一事实表明，这种类型的农业在经济上有其脆弱性。 来自辞典例句
• He failed therein to take account of the frailties of human nature--the difficulties of matrimonial life. 在此，他没有考虑到人性的种种弱点--夫妻生活的种种难处。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

179 judicial   

adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的

参考例句：

• He is a man with a judicial mind.他是个公正的人。
• Tom takes judicial proceedings against his father.汤姆对他的父亲正式提出诉讼。

180 Amended   

adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He asked to see the amended version. 他要求看修订本。
• He amended his speech by making some additions and deletions. 他对讲稿作了些增删修改。

181 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

182 stuns   

v.击晕( stun的第三人称单数 )；使大吃一惊；给（某人）以深刻印象；使深深感动

参考例句：

• But sometimes, a moment stuns us as it happens. 但总有那么一个瞬间让我们惊喜。 来自互联网
• Shield Stun: Stuns the top of the aggro chart, 3s stun. 盾牌昏迷：最大眩晕，3秒钟晕眩。 来自互联网

183 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

184 parentheses   

n.圆括号，插入语，插曲（ parenthesis的名词复数 ）

参考例句：

• Irregular forms are given in parentheses . 不规则形式标注在括号内。
• Answer these questions, using the words in parentheses. Put the apostrophe in the right place. 用句后括号中的词或词组来回答问题，注意撇号的位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》

185 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。

186 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

187 forthright   

adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank

参考例句：

• It's sometimes difficult to be forthright and not give offence.又直率又不得罪人，这有时很难办到。
• He told me forthright just why he refused to take my side.他直率地告诉我他不肯站在我这一边的原因。

188 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

189 confiscatory   

没收的，充公的

参考例句：

190 hypocrisy   

n.伪善，虚伪

参考例句：

• He railed against hypocrisy and greed.他痛斥伪善和贪婪的行为。
• He accused newspapers of hypocrisy in their treatment of the story.他指责了报纸在报道该新闻时的虚伪。

191 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

192 illuminating   

a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的

参考例句：

• We didn't find the examples he used particularly illuminating. 我们觉得他采用的那些例证启发性不是特别大。
• I found his talk most illuminating. 我觉得他的话很有启发性。

193 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

194 dodges   

n.闪躲( dodge的名词复数 )；躲避；伎俩；妙计v.闪躲( dodge的第三人称单数 )；回避

参考例句：

• He tried all sorts of dodges to avoid being called up. 他挖空心思，耍弄各种花招以逃避被征召入伍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Those were the dodges he used to escape taxation. 那些是他用以逃税的诡计。 来自辞典例句

195 spawning   

产卵

参考例句：

• Encounter sites have a small chance of spawning a "Commander" NPC. 遭遇战地区有很小的几率遇到NPC指挥官。
• Instantly revives your Champion at your Spawning Pool, 9 minute cooldown. 立即在出生地复活你的英雄，冷却时间9分钟。

196 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

197 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

198 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

199 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

200 benefactors   

n.捐助者，施主( benefactor的名词复数 )；恩人

参考例句：

• I rate him among my benefactors. 我认为他是我的一个恩人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We showed high respect to benefactors. 我们对捐助者表达了崇高的敬意。 来自辞典例句

201 loathed   

v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢

参考例句：

• Baker loathed going to this red-haired young pup for supplies. 面包师傅不喜欢去这个红头发的自负的傻小子那里拿原料。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self! 因此，他厌恶不幸的自我尤胜其它！ 来自英汉文学 - 红字

202 exhaustion   

n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述

参考例句：

• She slept the sleep of exhaustion.她因疲劳而酣睡。
• His exhaustion was obvious when he fell asleep standing.他站着睡着了，显然是太累了。

203 depreciation   

n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低

参考例句：

• She can't bear the depreciation of the enemy.她受不了敌人的蹂躏。
• They wrote off 500 for depreciation of machinery.他们注销了500镑作为机器折旧费。

204 oyster   

n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人

参考例句：

• I enjoy eating oyster; it's really delicious.我喜欢吃牡蛎，它味道真美。
• I find I fairly like eating when he finally persuades me to taste the oyster.当他最后说服我尝尝牡蛎时，我发现我相当喜欢吃。

205 clam   

n.蛤，蛤肉

参考例句：

• Yup!I also like clam soup and sea cucumbers.对呀！我还喜欢蛤仔汤和海参。
• The barnacle and the clam are two examples of filter feeders.藤壶和蛤类是滤过觅食者的两种例子。

206 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

207 scuttles   

n.天窗( scuttle的名词复数 )v.使船沉没( scuttle的第三人称单数 )；快跑，急走

参考例句：

208 adventitious   

adj.偶然的

参考例句：

• The strike was broken,of course,but mainly by a series of adventitious developments.罢工是中断了，但主要还是由于发生了一系列意外事件。
• His knowledge of this particular bishop was somewhat adventitious.他对主教当中这一位的了解，似乎多少事出偶然。

209 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

210 reimbursed   

v.偿还，付还( reimburse的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Any out-of-pocket expenses incurred on the firm's business will be reimbursed. 由公司业务产生的开销都可以报销。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Employees are reimbursed for any legal fees incurred when they relocate. 员工调往异地工作时，他们可以报销由此产生的所有法律服务费用。 来自《简明英汉词典》

211 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

212 invoked   

v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求

参考例句：

• It is unlikely that libel laws will be invoked. 不大可能诉诸诽谤法。
• She had invoked the law in her own defence. 她援引法律为自己辩护。 来自《简明英汉词典》

213 beverages   

n.饮料( beverage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• laws governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 控制酒类销售的法规
• regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 含酒精饮料的销售管理条例

214 wails   

痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The child burst into loud wails. 那个孩子突然大哭起来。
• Through this glaciated silence the white wails of the apartment fixed arbitrary planes. 在这冰封似的沉寂中，公寓的白色墙壁构成了一个个任意的平面。 来自英汉非文学 - 科幻

215 abrogation   

n.取消，废除

参考例句：

• China regrets the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. 中国对《反弹道导弹条约》失效感到遗憾。
• Measures for the abrogation shall be stipulated by the State Council. 废除的办法由国务院制定。

216 stipulation   

n.契约，规定，条文；条款说明

参考例句：

• There's no stipulation as to the amount you can invest. 没有关于投资额的规定。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The only stipulation the building society makes is that house must be insured. 建屋互助会作出的唯一规定是房屋必须保险。 来自《简明英汉词典》

217 substantiated   

v.用事实支持（某主张、说法等），证明，证实( substantiate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The results of the tests substantiated his claims. 这些检验的结果证实了他的说法。
• The statement has never been substantiated. 这一陈述从未得到证实。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

218 cursory   

adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的

参考例句：

• He signed with only a cursory glance at the report.他只草草看了一眼报告就签了名。
• The only industry mentioned is agriculture and it is discussed in a cursory sentence.实业方面只谈到农业,而且只是匆匆带了一句。

219 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

220 commuting   

交换（的）

参考例句：

• I used the commuting time to read and answer my mail. 我利用上下班在汽车中的时间来阅读和答复给我的函电。
• Noncommuting objects are as real to the mathematicians as commuting objects. 对于数学家来说，不可交换的对象与可交换的对象是一样真实的。

221 lodges   

v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属

参考例句：

• But I forget, if I ever heard, where he lodges in Liverpool. 可是我记不得有没有听他说过他在利物浦的住址。 来自辞典例句
• My friend lodges in my uncle's house. 我朋友寄居在我叔叔家。 来自辞典例句

222 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

223 commute   

vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通

参考例句：

• I spend much less time on my commute to work now.我现在工作的往返时间要节省好多。
• Most office workers commute from the suburbs.很多公司的职员都是从郊外来上班的。

224 premium   

n.加付款；赠品；adj.高级的；售价高的

参考例句：

• You have to pay a premium for express delivery.寄快递你得付额外费用。
• Fresh water was at a premium after the reservoir was contaminated.在水库被污染之后，清水便因稀而贵了。

225 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

226 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

227 admonish   

v.训戒；警告；劝告

参考例句：

• I will tactfully admonish him not to behave like this again.我会婉转的规诫他不要再这样做。
• Admonish your friends privately,but praise them openly.要私下告戒朋友，但是要公开夸奖朋友。

228 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

229 relaxation   

n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐

参考例句：

• The minister has consistently opposed any relaxation in the law.部长一向反对法律上的任何放宽。
• She listens to classical music for relaxation.她听古典音乐放松。

230 derives   

v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• English derives in the main from the common Germanic stock. 英语主要源于日耳曼语系。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derives his income from freelance work. 他以自由职业获取收入。 来自《简明英汉词典》

231 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

232 penalized   

对…予以惩罚( penalize的过去式和过去分词 )； 使处于不利地位

参考例句：

• You will be penalized for poor spelling. 你拼写不好将会受到处罚。
• Team members will be penalized for lateness. 队员迟到要受处罚。

233 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

234 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。

235 mingle   

vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往

参考例句：

• If we mingle with the crowd,we should not be noticed.如果我们混在人群中，就不会被注意到。
• Oil will not mingle with water.油和水不相融。

236 discriminates   

分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的第三人称单数 )； 歧视，有差别地对待

参考例句：

• The new law discriminates against lower-paid workers. 这条新法律歧视低工资的工人。
• One test governs state legislation that discriminates against interstate commerce. 一个检验约束歧视州际商业的州立法。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

237 exorbitantly   

参考例句：

• Prices are exorbitantly high in the capital. 首都的物价高得不可思议。 来自互联网
• In some countries, prices are exorbitantly high which are ten as much as that in China. 一些国家的物价水平高，大概是中国国内的十倍。 来自互联网

238 sculptors   

雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座

参考例句：

• He is one of Britain's best-known sculptors. 他是英国最有名的雕塑家之一。
• Painters and sculptors are indexed separately. 画家和雕刻家被分开，分别做了索引。

239 avalanche   

n.雪崩，大量涌来

参考例句：

• They were killed by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.他们在瑞士阿尔卑斯山的一次雪崩中罹难。
• Higher still the snow was ready to avalanche.在更高处积雪随时都会崩塌。

240 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

241 dilettante   

n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者

参考例句：

• He is a master of that area even if he is a dilettante.虽然他只是个业余爱好者，但却是一流的高手。
• I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional.作为一个业余艺术爱好者我过于严肃认真了，而为一个专业人员我又太业余了。

242 jade   

n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠

参考例句：

• The statue was carved out of jade.这座塑像是玉雕的。
• He presented us with a couple of jade lions.他送给我们一对玉狮子。

243 incurs   

遭受，招致，引起( incur的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• She falls in love and incurs the wrath of her father. 她恋爱了，这引起了父亲的愤怒。
• A judge incurs no civil liability for judicial acts, even if guilty of fraud and corruption. 法官不得因其司法行为而承担民事责任，即使犯有诈欺与贪污罪。 来自口语例句

244 substantiating   

v.用事实支持（某主张、说法等），证明，证实( substantiate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Darby Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 新旧库信仰乃是所盼望之事的实现心态，是未见之事的实验标准。 来自互联网
• Substantiating and enriching the world outlook theory is an effective way of perfecting philosophical method. 充实和丰富世界观理论是完善哲学方法的有效途径。 来自互联网

245 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

246 commendably   

很好地

参考例句：

• So, workflow management technology is create, and then develop commendably. 于是工作流管理技术应运而生，并且蓬勃发展起来。 来自互联网
• Mr McCain is a commendably committed free-trader. 麦凯恩是一个标志明显的自由贸易主义者。 来自互联网

247 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

248 constructive   

adj.建设的，建设性的

参考例句：

• We welcome constructive criticism.我们乐意接受有建设性的批评。
• He is beginning to deal with his anger in a constructive way.他开始用建设性的方法处理自己的怒气。

249 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

250 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

251 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

252 prospective   

adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的

参考例句：

• The story should act as a warning to other prospective buyers.这篇报道应该对其他潜在的购买者起到警示作用。
• They have all these great activities for prospective freshmen.这会举办各种各样的活动来招待未来的新人。

253 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

254 royalties   

特许权使用费

参考例句：

• I lived on about £3,000 a year from the royalties on my book. 我靠着写书得来的每年约3，000英镑的版税生活。 来自辞典例句
• Payments shall generally be made in the form of royalties. 一般应采取提成方式支付。 来自经济法规部分

255 jewelry   

n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝

参考例句：

• The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
• Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。

256 inventory   

n.详细目录，存货清单

参考例句：

• Some stores inventory their stock once a week.有些商店每周清点存货一次。
• We will need to call on our supplier to get more inventory.我们必须请供应商送来更多存货。

257 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

258 deftly   

adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He deftly folded the typed sheets and replaced them in the envelope. 他灵巧地将打有字的纸折好重新放回信封。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. 这一下终于让他发现了她的兴趣所在，于是他熟练地继续谈这个话题。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

259 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

260 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

261 contention   

n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张

参考例句：

• The pay increase is the key point of contention. 加薪是争论的焦点。
• The real bone of contention,as you know,is money.你知道，争论的真正焦点是钱的问题。

262 squandered   

v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He squandered all his money on gambling. 他把自己所有的钱都糟蹋在赌博上了。
• She felt as indignant as if her own money had been squandered. 她心里十分生气，好像是她自己的钱给浪费掉了似的。 来自飘（部分）

263 specialties   

n.专门，特性，特别；专业( specialty的名词复数 )；特性；特制品；盖印的契约

参考例句：

• Great Books are popular, not pedantic. They are not written by specialists about specialties for specialists. 名著绝不引经据典，艰深难懂，而是通俗易读。它们不是专家为专业人员撰写的专业书籍。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学
• Brain drains may represent a substantial reduction in some labor force skills and specialties. 智力外流可能表示某种劳动力技能和特长大量减少。 来自辞典例句

264 specialized   

adj.专门的，专业化的

参考例句：

• There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
• These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。

265 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

266 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

267 specious   

adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地

参考例句：

• Such talk is actually specious and groundless.这些话实际上毫无根据，似是而非的。
• It is unlikely that the Duke was convinced by such specious arguments.公爵不太可能相信这种似是而非的论点。

268 discourse   

n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述

参考例句：

• We'll discourse on the subject tonight.我们今晚要谈论这个问题。
• He fell into discourse with the customers who were drinking at the counter.他和站在柜台旁的酒客谈了起来。

269 squanderer   

n.浪费者，放荡者

参考例句：

270 onus   

n.负担；责任

参考例句：

• The onus is on government departments to show cause why information cannot bedisclosed.政府部门有责任说明不能把信息公开的理由。
• The onus of proof lies with you.你有责任提供证据。

271 ideologies   

n.思想（体系）( ideology的名词复数 )；思想意识；意识形态；观念形态

参考例句：

• There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. 这两种思想意识之间并没有根本的分歧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Radical ideologies require to contrast to their own goodness the wickedness of some other system. 凡是过激的意识形态，都需要有另外一个丑恶的制度作对比，才能衬托出自己的善良。 来自辞典例句

272 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

273 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

274 tolls   

（缓慢而有规律的）钟声( toll的名词复数 )； 通行费； 损耗； （战争、灾难等造成的）毁坏

参考例句：

• A man collected tolls at the gateway. 一个人在大门口收通行费。
• The long-distance call tolls amount to quite a sum. 长途电话费数目相当可观。

275 lotteries   

n.抽彩给奖法( lottery的名词复数 )；碰运气的事；彩票；彩券

参考例句：

• Next to bullfights and soccer, lotteries are Spain's biggest sport. 除了斗牛和足球以外，彩票是西班牙最热门的玩意儿。 来自辞典例句
• Next to bullfight and soccer, lotteries are Spain's biggest sport. 发行彩票在西班牙是仅次于斗牛和足球的最大娱乐活动。 来自辞典例句

276 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

277 expenditures   

n.花费( expenditure的名词复数 )；使用；（尤指金钱的）支出额；（精力、时间、材料等的）耗费

参考例句：

• We have overspent.We'll have to let up our expenditures next month. 我们已经超支了，下个月一定得节约开支。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pension includes an allowance of fifty pounds for traffic expenditures. 年金中包括50镑交通费补贴。 来自《简明英汉词典》

278 proponent   

n.建议者；支持者；adj.建议的

参考例句：

• Stapp became a strong early proponent of automobile seat belts.斯塔普是力主在汽车上采用座椅安全带的早期倡导者。
• Halsey was identified as a leading proponent of the values of progressive education.哈尔西被认为是进步教育价值观的主要支持者。

279 proponents   

n.（某事业、理论等的）支持者，拥护者( proponent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Reviewing courts were among the most active proponents of hybrid rulemaking procedures. 复审法院是最积极的混合型规则制定程序的建议者。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
• Proponents of such opinions were arrested as 'traitors. ' 提倡这种主张的人马上作为“卖国贼”逮捕起来。 来自辞典例句

280 adherents   

n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙

参考例句：

• He is a leader with many adherents. 他是个有众多追随者的领袖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The proposal is gaining more and more adherents. 该建议得到越来越多的支持者。 来自《简明英汉词典》

281 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

282 pitfalls   

（捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误

参考例句：

• the potential pitfalls of buying a house 购买房屋可能遇到的圈套
• Several pitfalls remain in the way of an agreement. 在达成协议的进程中还有几个隐藏的困难。

283 regularity   

n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐

参考例句：

• The idea is to maintain the regularity of the heartbeat.问题就是要维持心跳的规律性。
• He exercised with a regularity that amazed us.他锻炼的规律程度令我们非常惊讶。

284 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

285 spouse   

n.配偶(指夫或妻)

参考例句：

• Her spouse will come to see her on Sunday.她的丈夫星期天要来看她。
• What is the best way to keep your spouse happy in the marriage?在婚姻中保持配偶幸福的最好方法是什么？

286 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

287 widowers   

n.鳏夫( widower的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Even elderly widows and widowers choose to live on their own. 连年迈的寡妇和鳏夫都选择独自生活。 来自互联网
• His works contain Widowers' House, Mrs. Warren's Profession, a play about the economic oppression of women. 他的早期代表作品包括《鳏夫的房产》，《沃伦夫人的职业》的主题是对妇女们经济上的压迫。 来自互联网

288 persistent   

adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的

参考例句：

• Albert had a persistent headache that lasted for three days.艾伯特连续头痛了三天。
• She felt embarrassed by his persistent attentions.他不时地向她大献殷勤，使她很难为情。

289 tortuous   

adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的

参考例句：

• We have travelled a tortuous road.我们走过了曲折的道路。
• They walked through the tortuous streets of the old city.他们步行穿过老城区中心弯弯曲曲的街道。

290 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

291 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

292 gore   

n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶

参考例句：

• The fox lay dying in a pool of gore.狐狸倒在血泊中奄奄一息。
• Carruthers had been gored by a rhinoceros.卡拉瑟斯被犀牛顶伤了。

293 optimists   

n.乐观主义者( optimist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Even optimists admit the outlook to be poor. 甚至乐观的人都认为前景不好。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Optimists reckon house prices will move up with inflation this year. 乐观人士认为今年的房价将会随通货膨胀而上涨。 来自辞典例句

294 specify   

vt.指定，详细说明

参考例句：

• We should specify a time and a place for the meeting.我们应指定会议的时间和地点。
• Please specify what you will do.请你详述一下你将做什么。

295 structural   

adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的

参考例句：

• The storm caused no structural damage.风暴没有造成建筑结构方面的破坏。
• The North American continent is made up of three great structural entities.北美大陆是由三个构造单元组成的。