40 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
sale of capital assets including stocks, bonds and 
real estate, amounted to less than 10 per cent of 
total reported individual and corporate incomes. In 
any event the government would have had little 
to lose and much to save, by successful agitation for 
the repeal of this law. 
During and after the panic the Treasury Depart- 
ment recommended that Congress reduce income 
taxes during 1930—a one per cent cut on both per- 
sonal and corporation incomes. The department 
stated that total ordinary receipts of the govern- 
ment for the current fiscal year through Novem- 
ber 20, were $119,000,000 larger than for the 
corresponding period of 1928; total ordinary ex- 
penditures, on the other hand, had been reduced by 
$107,000,000. This amply permitted a tax cut, with 
a saving of $160,000,000 a year. It was stated that 
a further cut of the tax on capital gains, or its repeal, 
would assure the government against such losses in 
revenue as were sustained by reason of the fall in 
stock prices during 1929. In fact, during ordinary 
years the losses in revenue (allowed to the extent of 
12% per cent on capital net loss from sale of real 
estate, stocks and bonds, other than loss from sale 
of assets held more ‘than two years) ran into the 
millions. Thus the Statistics of Income for 1927 
states this amount to be $227,878,965. This factor 
of establishment of loss for income tax purposes 
tended to hold the stock market down after the 
crash. Great volumes of securities were sent into the 
market after the bottom was touched on November