For years, there has been a pronounced conflict of opinion between the Internal Revenue Department of the U.S. Treasury and business management in general as to the propriety of different rates of depreciation allowances for physical assets. This conflict, which at times has reached the stage of an active dispute, has been costly to all. Management has been anxious to take deductions against taxes when it was known that there were taxes to absorb them. The Revenue Department has at all times had a natural desire to get taxes when profits were available to tax. The Department has been guided in its thinking by a conservative approach. The Department has been careful to act in a manner that would result in like treatment for all. Influenced perhaps to some extent by a desire for simplicity of administration, the Department has set simple rules and applied them pretty generally to all alike. To an important degree the Department has undoubtedly been influenced by the responsibility placed upon it to collect taxes justly due.