Government go to the expense of providing us with our own court

room.

For example, at the moment we could arrange to have a courtroom in San Francisco, which the judge there has been very agreeable about providing us. But we schedule hearings about 60 days ahead, in order to give the parties a chance to get together and to prepare for the trial or perhaps to settle the case. Now, a few days ago, we got word from the judge's clerk that he was sorry but that he would bave to use the courtroom himself, so that we do not have any place to go. We have to go out and find some place.

This time we rented a courtroom from the county court. We will have to pay rent for that. That is our only alternative. But, as I say, unless the Government of the United States in putting up buildings-some of these Federal buildings-would put in an extra courtroom for occasional users such as ourselves, I do not know what the answer can be, because certainly we would not be justified in having a courtroom for our use, except in New York.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. I thought the Foley Square Building was large enough to accommodate more than the district courts there.

Judge MURDOCK. We were in there for about a year and a half, or maybe 2 years. We had courtroom 619, and it was entirely satisfactory. It apparently was never used by anybody except ourselves.

There is a funny story connected with that, that I should like to tell you. They did not want to give us any space in that building. At that time we were a board, the Board of Tax Appeals, and they would not let us in there. Judge Knox was the senior district judge, and he felt he could not let us go in there without letting other agencies in. He did not want to do it. So we could not get in. Arundell was chairman of the Board at that time. He went up to pay his respects to the circuit judges, and he ran into Judge Manton up there. He was a very forceful kind of a person, as you know. The judge asked, "What are you doing up here?" he told him, to which he replied, "That is a hell-of-a-note," and he rank a bell and said, "Get these gentlemen a courtroom. We have extra courtrooms." So they gave us a courtroom there. Of course, that was embarrassing to us. Unfortunately they put Judge Manton in the penitentiary and we lost our courtroom.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. If an investigation were made up there, I think they could find some room for you.

Judge MURDOCK. I had this up with Mr. Shafroth, who was assistant to Mr. Chandler, who is supposed to take charge of the use of courtrooms, and the amount of work in the Federal courts, and so forth. He told me that they were using all of those courtrooms up there now; not that they were using all of them continually, but they were using all of them some of the time, and it would be very, very uncertain as to whether we could or could not use it. But we have to have a courtroom in New York. We are up there 26 weeks of the year, and we could not run if we did not have, or did not know ahead of time, where we were going to be up there. For that reason we went out and rented a place. This is quite a modest set-up that we have. I agree that it is too bad we were not able to get in some already established place. We did not want to spend the money, but we finally came to the conclusion that we could not get along any other way.

Down at the customs court they were always agreeable, everybody has been very agreeable about giving us a courtroom, except at the Foley Square Building. But sometimes their calendars would conflict with ours at the last minute. We might go in there with 70 or 80 cases, and about 150 people awaiting a calendar call, and when the calendar call was over, and we began to try the various cases, there was no place for these people to retire, or to prepare for the next case, except to go out into the hall. It causes quite a bit of confusion, with so many people milling around.

PRINTING AND BINDING

Mr. WOODRUM. Your next item is:

For all printing and binding for the Tax Court of the United States, $36,000. Will you explain the purpose of the increase requested?

Judge MURDOCK. The purpose of that is that we have always gotten out two volumes a year, but now it looks as if we will have more than will go into two volumes. Up to now, two have come out each year. It looks now as though we will have to have an additional volume. It will not be all work of that year. Some of it will be carried over from the previous year. But we will need three volumes, and that is why we have estimated $4,000 for that printing.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Are you printing any new forms?

Judge MURDOCK. Only to replace the old ones, as the supply becomes exhausted. We took a rubber stamp and eliminated the name of the Board on our old forms and are using and will continue to use the old forms as long as possible.

OVERTIME PAY AND AUTOMATIC PROMOTIONS

Mr. WOODRUM. The act of 1942 transferred to you all the tax matters of the old Processing Tax Board of Review. Has that brought a lot of additional work on your court?

Judge MURDOCK. May I refer to page 3 of the justification? We do not contemplate any increase in personnel, but we would like to have the 139 full-time officials and employees that we have had up to now. The figure does not include estimates for automatic promotions under provisions of the Ramspeck Act or for overtime pay under the recent act. The court is on a 44-hour week, which includes 4 hours of overtime under this new act. That was true at the time that I wrote that, but since then, by Executive order, we have been put under the 48-hour act, which includes 8 hours of overtime. Forty-four of our employees on our present pay roll will receive automatic promotions under the Ramspeck Act during the fiscal year 1944. The net amount involved in these promotions will be approximately $2,550.

I would like to tell you in that connection that it will take $2,700 & month, or $32,400 a year, to take care of that overtime pay.

I am preparing answers now to a lot of questions asked by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget. In connection with that, I asked him if we could not go on this 10-percent basis instead of the overtime basis, because we really do not need those extra hours. That is, if they would give us the 10 percent, as they have the other courts, and the legislative establishment, a straight 10 percent increase

in pay, because they are not paid on an overtime basis. If that could be done for us, too, it would save us an awful lot of that $32,000. We do not really need the time, because we just have a certain amount of work that has to be done anyway.

Mr. WOODRUM. If you have to go on a 48-hour week you will not require as many people, will you?

Judge MURDOCK. We will. That is the point. We are all chopped up into a lot of little groups doing special jobs. In a situation like that, the extra time of one person does not save you anything. It does not save you any one employee. There is not enough saved to take up the work of one person on the pay roll except perhaps one place in the whole organization. We are divided up into groups from three to five.

AMOUNTS OF COLLECTIONS

Mr. FITZPATRICK. What does your report show as to the amounts collected from taxpayers, as compared with last year?

Judge MURDOCK. I do not have those figures before me.
Mr. FITZPATRICK. We used to get such a figure.

Judge MURDOCK. I can get those figures for you, but I do not have them with me.

(The following statement was later supplied by Judge Murdock:) Our court has nothing to do with collections and, therefore, I have no figures on that. However, I have figures for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1942, showing the amount of deficiencies originally determined by the Commissioner and the amount subsequently determined as a result of petitions having been filed with this court. 4,292 cases were closed during that period in which the total deficiencies as determined by the Commissioner amounted to $171,732,820.42, and the total amount redetermined under our orders was $41,818,203.54. 2,517 of these cases were closed by a stipulation of the parties whereby they agreed that the correct deficiencies were in the total amount of $24,152,145.35 instead of $137,460,973.72. 181 cases were dismissed with practically no change in the deficiencies as originally determined in the total amount of $1,350,618.22. The remaining cases were ones decided by opinion and in those the total deficiencies as originally determined by the Commissioner amounted to $29,386,963.75, whereas the amounts determined under the decisions of the court amounted to $15,021,250.88. The above figures are the latest available and I believe they give the information which Mr. Fitzpatrick desires.

NUMBER OF CASES PENDING AND DISPOSED OF

Mr. WOODRUM. What about the number of cases that you handle? Has your work increased a great deal?

Judge MURDOCK. No. I am glad to advise the committee of a reduction in our list of pending cases. Last year, when I appeared at the hearing, I reported 5,536 pending cases as of October 31, 1941. The total as of this date has been reduced to 5,040. That is, at the beginning of the year, it was 5,019. That is as low as it has ever been since they began to pile up in the very beginning, when it went up to 22,000 altogether.

Mr. WOODRUM. What about the number of cases disposed of? Are you disposing of more cases?

Judge MURDOCK. We are disposing of some more, but the Commissioner adopted a policy whereby they do not have so many petitions filed, and it has reduced the number of cases coming in. As a matter of fact, since the beginning of this year, there have been 231 new cases docketed. I think during the entire period they averaged around 350

a month. However, in the last 6 months, there were 1,500 cases that came in. I think it runs to around 4,000 that are coming in now. Mr. FITZPATRICK. Those new cases that are coming in, are they cases where people are making applications or petitions stating that they have overpaid their income tax, or are they cases where the Government says that they have not paid enough?

Judge MURDOCK. They are all cases, they have to be cases, where the Government has held that they have not paid enough, because we do not have any jurisdiction of refunds. It has to be a case where the Government says that you owe some more money than you have paid. If you say that you have paid more money than you owe, you would have to go to a district court or to a court of claims to sue for that. Mr. FITZPATRICK. You do not handle that kind of case? Judge MURDOCK. No.

TRANSFER OF PROCESSING TAX BOARD OF REVIEW CASES TO THE TAX COURT

There is one other thing I would like to mention. The Congress at the last session discontinued the Processing Tax Board. That was not done through any request of ours. We did not have anything to do with it, but we were asked simply if we could handle the work and we said yes. They transferred that work to us, Now, we are not asking for any increase in our appropriation on that account, but I call your attention to the fact, because we took that work over approximately $63,000 of their last year's budget has been returned. Their appropriation for expenses was $106,000. So that by our taking over that work, that will be eliminated. I hope that we will not have to have any additional amount to take care of it. I am not quite sure, because when we get into the trial of some of these processing tax cases we may need some technical assistance in the way of accountants. But I am not asking for it until I find out whether it will be necessary. am hoping that we will not have to do it.

I

NUMBER OF PERSONNEL

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. The Budget break-down seems to indicate an increase on account of personnel in the amount of about $10,000. Do I understand you to say that that is inaccurate, and that you are not asking for any increase on account of personnel?

Mr. TRACY. There are included in these 1944 figures all of the automatic increases that will take place during 1943, which will be reflected in 1944. But we are not asking for any additional people.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. The number of man-years shown for 1944 is 139 as compared with 137.7-whatever that means in 1943, and that increase of $10,000.

Mr. TRACY. We allowed during this year for vacancies, the nonfilling of vacancies, for certain months of certain employees.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. What is the total personnel you are asking for?

Mr. TRACY. One hundred and thirty-nine.

Judge MURDOCK. Including the judges.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. And you have had 129 employees for some

time?

Mr. TRACY. We were allowed 139 for this year.

Judge MURDOCK. We have not been able to fill certain vacancies. which may account for some of that.

(The following statement was later supplied by Judge Murdock:)

The column of our green budget sheets headed "Estimated 1943" was prepared about July 1942, at which time we foresaw that certain of the positions for which appropriation had been made would not be filled as of July 1, 1942, but would probably be filled at various times thereafter. This will explain why we estimated 137.7 judges and employees as drawing pay during the fiscal year.

The next column "Estimated 1944” had to be on a full fiscal year basis, as we had no way of forecasting a year in advance just what positions might be open as of July 1, 1943. Therefore, a full-time estimate of 139 judges and employees covering the entire fiscal year 1944 was submitted.

The difference between the two columns amounts to $9,788, so that if the vacancies shown in the 1942 column had been filled as of July 1, 1942, the total sums for the two columns would have been approximately the same.

PRINTING AND BINDING INCREASE

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. I note in your justification with reference to printing and binding that you say this increase may not fully develop until later; that is not required immediately?

Judge MURDOCK. Well, no.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. You are not sure that it will be required? Judge MURDOCK. I think it will be required, but I am not sure; that is right.

TRAVEL AND COMMUNICATION

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Your travel and ocmmunications are running along just about the same each year. In fact, communications shows a little increase despite the decentralization that you have referred to. Would not that decentralization result in cutting down on the travel item and perhaps also on the communications item?

Judge MURDOCK. That decentralization took place, as far as we are concerned, 10 years ago. We have been hearing cases all over the United States for at least 10 years. Our travel has been pretty uniform during all of that period, because we have to go to about 50 different cities and hold about 100 different calendars in a year. That has been true for some time.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue decentralized a few years ago but that had no effect upon us. Before that we had their representatives out with us. They sent them out with us. Now they are there when we get there; that is the only difference.

OTHER CONTRACTUAL SERVICES

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. What is included in the item, "Other contractual services"?

Mr. TRACY. Primarily, the cost of stenographically reporting our hearings, all over the country. Each year we solicit bids for this work and award the contract to the lowest responsible bidder. There are other small items for light and telephone service in New York, the rented quarters, and for telephone service in our Chicago quarters. There we have a courtroom, a retiring room, and a clerk's office in a Government-owned building which we occupy from time to time, as needed. This space is available to the Court of Claims and other governmental agencies, when not required for our use.