Memo to Legislators and Governor see page 5 NYC Fell Down on Withholding Tax Forms

By FRANCIS KELLY The Federal Income Tax law provides that by January 31 of each year, every employee must receive from his employer a statement of his earnings for the preceding *year, and how much was withheld for taxes. But New York City employees must be a special type of citizen because some of them got their information—which is needed to make up the income tax reports, as late as March 10. That gave them exactly five days in which -to solve the form 1040 puzzle and figure out whether they owe Uncle 6am or he owes them and how much. Tale of Woe The City Comptroller's office had the responsibility of getting the little slips of paper out, and i.the story they tell is a long tale of woe. To begin with, the Comptroller's office is plastered with signs, one ^ on every door; "For any information about withholding tax, see your department payroll clerk." They had plenty of City employees haunting them before the signs •Went up. Point 1. "That January 31 date was impossible for us to meet." said a spokesman for the Comptroller's Office. "We don't even get the payroll sheets back from the departments until January 24. It's absolutely impossible to figure out the total tax deductions and put them down in 7 days." Now the City has approximately 190,000 employees. The figure changes from day to day. But to determine the tax deductions, over 220,000 different accounts had to be figured. That's how many people came in and went of the City service during the year. Trouble, Trouble Point 2. The troubles that the Comptroller's office ran into came so fast and furious that at times it was funny. At the very beginning, the Fed'l Government sent in the slips which had to be made out in triplicate. One copy to the employee, one to Federal Government, one to the Department payroll office. First, the forms the Government sent in didn't fit the machines that the City had. New machines couldn't be bought because of priorities. "Please let us use other forms" begged the Comptroller.