Obituaries - April 1, 2000

* Carl S. Shoup; Set Up Japan’s Tax System

Carl S. Shoup, 97, an economics professor from Columbia University who oversaw the creation of a modern tax system for Japan after World War II. Born in San Jose, Shoup graduated from Stanford University with a law degree in 1924 before moving to New York. He was briefly a reporter for the New York World but left journalism, which he found boring, and began studying economics at Columbia. He earned his doctoral degree there in 1930 and, 15 years later, became a full professor. In 1949, he was invited to go to Japan to help overhaul the tax code. The Shoup Mission, as it became known, reformed the tax code, eliminating the need for about 80% of Japanese to file individual returns because taxes withheld from their paychecks were more than enough to take care of taxes on the national, prefectural and municipal levels. For businesses, the Shoup group proposed a system in which firms that filed annual tax reports, backed up by strong records, would be freed from audits. This system for business also allowed for various tax breaks, including strong allowances for depreciation of equipment and the ability to carry over losses in bad years to offset gains in better years. The Diet enacted the Shoup plan in 1950. Shoup helped develop the value-added taxes now used in many European countries. In addition, he helped overhaul the tax systems in Cuba, Venezuela and Liberia. On March 23 at a nursing home in Laconia, N.H.