Sen. Terry Sanford Letter to Dr. and Mrs. Keats Sparrow
January 13, 1988
A letter from Senator Terry Sanford (D-NC) to East Carolina University Professor W. Keats Sparrow, dated 13 January 1988, in response to a letter from Prof. Sparrow on provisions of the current tax bill. Sparrow objected to a proposal passed by the House of Representatives and being considered in the Senate to disallow “future amortization of intangible assets, such as customer lists” in the tax code. Sanford expressed his concern that the economic cost to the taxpayers would be greater than the revenue received by the government and also opposed the provision. He wrote that he had discussed the matter with Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) and the staffs of the Senate Finance and Budget committees and when the final bill passed on 21 December 1987 it did not contain the provision that concerned Sparrow.