>

94  POSTAL  SAVINGS
the  bill,  if  passed,  would  encourage  tax  dodging
through  the  withdrawal  of  money  from  ordinary
banks  just  before  assessment  day  and  its  temporaiy
  deposit  in  postal  savings  banks. 38
The  tax  dodging  argument  apparently  did  not
make  a  very  strong  appeal.  The  fact  that  the
interest  rate  proposed  to  be  paid  by  the  Government ­
  was  but  2  per  cent  on  the  first  thousand
dollars,  and  nil  on  the  second,  the  proposed  limitation ­
  to  $2,000  on  the  total  amount  that  could
be  deposited,  the  ease  with  which  a  would-be  tax
dodger  could  dodge  taxes  on  cash  funds  without
recourse  to  postal  savings  deposits,  and  the  fact
that  Federal,  State  and  city  bonds  paying  higher
interest  rates  than  postal  savings  deposits  were
exempt  from  taxation—all  of  these  facts  weakened ­
  decidedly  the  appeal  of  the  tax  dodging
argument.
As  to  the  argument  that  the  raising  of  the  deposit ­
  limits  would  encourage  evasion  of  debt,  the
proponents  of  the  higher  deposit  limit  argued
that  there  had  been  very  little  evidence  of  such
evasion  under  the  old  limits,  and  that  the  new
ones  were  not  high  enough  to  make  the  danger  a
serious  one.  Furthermore,  said  Senator  Bryan,
of  Florida,  who  was  sponsor  for  the  bill  in  the
Senate,  the  question  whether  the  additional  de-88
  Ibid.,  p.  7304.