THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Re S. 1039-to make the exclusion of amounts received under a qualified group legal services plan permanent. Hon. BOB PACKWOOD, U.S. Senate, Committee on Finance, DEAR SENATOR Packwood: The Association of the Bar of the City of New York supports the proposal which you introduced in the Senate to make permanent § 120 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 120 provides that employers' contributions to qualified group legal services plans, and the value of the legal services provided, are exclusions from employees' income. Unless extended, the exclusion provided by this law will expire on December 31, 1981. S. 1039, the bill which you introduced, would make the exclusion in § 120 of the Code a permanent one and we hope that such a bill will be enacted into law. The availability of legal services to persons of all income levels is of fundamental importance. It is essential to fulfill the principle of "equal justice under law." By providing for the exclusion of amounts received under qualified group legal services plans, § 120 has contributed to the development of these plans and to the goal of making legal representation available to all persons who need it. The report of the Senate Finance Committee on the bill which became § 120 said, "The committee believes that excluding such employer contributions from the employees' income will promote interest in such plans and increase the access to legal services for many taxpayers by encouraging employers to offer and employees to seek such plans as a fringe benefit." S. Rep. No. 94-938, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., at 38 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S. Cong. & Ad. News 4030, 4064. We believe that experience since then bears this out. Access to legal services for the very poor, who may not be employed (and thus unable to benefit from § 120) must be met in some other way. To that end this Association, as you know, supports the legislation now pending before Congress to reauthorize the Legal Services Corporation, which provides grants to local offices for the provision of free legal services to the poor. But legal representation must also become more widely available to middleincome persons. Indeed, the Senate Committee reporting § 120 found that: "A tax incentive, which would increase the availability of legal services, is especially helpful to middle-income taxpayers who at present may be the most underrepresented economic group in terms of legal services. Lower income persons have access to publicly-supported legal aid services, while taxpayers with higher incomes can generally afford their own legal expenses." Id. at 4064. We respectfully urge that the Congress make § 120 of the Internal Revenue Code permanent, as S. 1039 would do, and reauthorize the Legal Services Corporation. Both steps will contribute importantly toward the national goal of providing meaningful access to the courts and to the judicial system for all Americans. Sincerely yours, OSCAR M. RUEBHAUSEN, President. DENTSPLY INTERNATIONAL, Hon. JOHN Danforth, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR DANFORTH: I wish to express my thanks to you for introducing Bill S. 978, which would relieve employers of the requirement to provide W-2 forms to employees at the time of termination, unless the employee specificaly requests the W-2 form. We have found the present regulations requiring us to provide terminating employees with a form W-2 within 30 days of the date of termination to be burdensome and unnecessary. Frequently the employee loses his W-2 prior to filing his tax return and subsequently requests another W-2 from us. From an administrative standpoint, we have to manually prepare the W-2 form because the computer is programmed to prepare the W-2 form only for all employees. Then after the end of the year, the computer automatically prepares another W-2 form which has to be manually pulled to avoid duplicate mailing of a W-2 form to the employee. Thanks again for your efforts to reduce our paperwork load. MARCUS K. DIXON, Assistant Treasurer and Tax Manager. JENKINS, NYSTROM & STERLACCI, P.C., Re support of S. 978 ROBERT E. LIGHTHIZER, Esq., Chief Counsel, Committee on Finance, DEAR MR. LIGHTHIZER: On behalf of the Retail Bakers of America, national association of this country's 30,000 retail bakers who make and sell on their own premises and in their own neighborhoods hundreds of hand-crafted and morningfresh bakery foods every day, I am pleased to express support for S. 978, a bill to permit employers to provide W-2 forms for terminated employees at year-end. Most retail bakeries are family owned and operated businesses which employ five to fifteen persons. Many employees are young people, some of whom are fulltime high school students. Retail bakeries do not have fulltime bookkeepers, "personnel directors" or "payroll departments". Usually, the baker himself or his spouse keeps the books and makes out payroll checks. At the same time, due to the youth of employees and their circumstances, there is a fair amount of turnover in the typical bakery. For these reasons, it is obviously advantageous to the members of our industry to be permitted to furnish terminated employees a W-2 form at the end of the year rather than upon termination. This way, the baker can take care of the matter for various employees at the same time and for all, instead of having to incur a paperwork burden each time an employee leaves. At the same time, such a change in the law would in no way prejudice, disadvantage or inconvenience former employees, since they would only need these forms for tax purposes and since everyone files a return on the same date. In fact, the change would actually benefit employees, who would not have to worry about safekeeping and no losing the forms until needed, and who would not have to go to the trouble of requesting a duplicate form in the event they lose the original W-2 that they received upon termination. As a means of lessening the paperwork headaches of small retail bakers, therefore, and at the same time perhaps saving some former employees some inconvenience too, the Retail Bakers of America supports passage of S. 978. If you have any questions concerning RBA's position on this legislation not answered by this statement, please telephone me. Respectfully submitted, GERARD P. PANARO, General Counsel, Retail Bakers of America. O |