Ethics of tax practice;

              Our self-assessment system is working
rather well, yet both the government
and practitioners are concerned with
THE ETHICS OF
THERE IS A GROWING SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN BUSINESS and in
the professions. Writers on the new capitalism comment on the
coupling of ingenuity and drive with social conscience. They discuss
the obligation of business leaders to do more than make a profit, their
obligation to their labor force, to consumers, and to the community
as a whole. Those planning the training of business leaders for the
1980's stress the importance of a liberal education to enable these
future leaders to live more and more in society, and in conformance
with society.
This area of social consciousness, or ethics, is of utmost importance
in the field of taxes. When our society as a whole must shoulder the
huge total tax burden, any shirking by one individual merely transfers
a heavier load to the shoulders of another. President Kennedy ex­pressed
this well in his tax message of April 20, 1961:
"One of the major characteristics of our tax system, and
one in which we can take a great deal of pride, is that it
20 THE QUARTERLY