European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 18, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes wednesday september 18. 1985 columns comments James Kilpatrick it s time for Congress of tackle income tax Reform it is  m the Day Tor Congress to buckle Doun 10 the hard task of lax re form but Given inc courage to act the House and Senate could cd do a part of the Job that needs to be done. The recent re porn from Cili cons for to Justice could provide Jusi the Spur that needed. The private study found that Over a four year period covering the tax years 1981 through 1984. 50 of the nation largest and richest corporations paid no net Federal income tax at All. These corporations had combined profits of $56 billion. Forty eight of them actually Gol refunds totalling almost $2.4 billion. These magical results were achieved largely through the deft manipulation of investment tax credits and the acc rec rated Cost recovery system cars. The two interlocking parts of the tax code were introduced some years ago with two laudable purposes in  to stimulate investment in new Plant and machinery and to protect corporate tax bases from erosion by inflation. Those Are Nice purposes and it doubt less is True that the two provisions have provided incentive for certain capital in vestments that otherwise might not have been made. When that has been said mucin More remains to be said. In actual applications the system produces benefits that arc clearly grotesque. It is ridiculous to state the mat Ter bluntly thai the Boeing co., with profits of 12. 1 billion not Only avoided income lanes altogether Bui actually received rebates of j285 million on taxes a m 64m6 warm Medb . Id in prior years. Mind you this was l. There is a huge difference be Pai lawful tween lax evasion and tax avoidance and no one properly can question Boeing s right to pay As liitle in taxes As inc jaw allows. The fault is not the company s thai the Law permits such a travesty. Boeing had plenty of company. In the period covered by the study Dow chemical Genera dynamics tonne co Pepsico and itt had Large refunds. At to with profits last year of is. 9 billion paid not a dime in Federal income taxes because of a freakish situation in 1984, when the company piled up Large tax losses. At to got the biggest refund of them All $241 million. William Safire in the proposals for tax Reform he put Forward in May president Reagan asked for repeal of both the investment tax cred it and the cars. His technical explanations were muffled in the jargon of tax accountants but one thing came through the Public intuitively perceives the tax system As unfair when a $is,000-a-Ycar school teacher pays More in income taxes than 50 of the Fortune 500 companies combined. It is More than unfair. It is absurd. In place of the investment tax credit and the cars. The administration pro poses a new capital Cost recovery sys tem that makes a Heap More sense. The president also asks for a revised minimum tax on corporations. In Exchange for these sensible amendments corporations would Benefit from Overall reductions. The object in part at least is to get us away from the hocus pocus. The president also wants to strike a blow against tax shelters whose sole purpose is to generate lax losses for wealthy individuals. Whether legally justified or not said the president the use of tax shelters by High income Well advised individuals is viewed with confusion and scepticism by Ordinary taxpayers. These perceptions undermine the voluntary compliance that is crucial to the income tax  even though the president is rain to go on tax Reform it is asking too much of Congress to expect consideration of the whole sweeping program in the time that remains. Some of the presi Dent s recommendations might unintentionally compound the unfairness in treat ment of individual income. Serious doubts have been raised about whether the pack age is in fact Revenue  in the name of simplification new complexities would be created. The writing of tax Law is an Art that can t be hurried. All the same we should remember Pickle s postulate. Named for the venera ble congressman from the 10th District of Texas the axiom holds that if something politically difficult is to be done at All it must be done in an Odd numbered  the pressures against tax Reform specifically inc pressures against repeal of investment  credit and the cars already arc formidable. The longer con Gress delays the heavier these pressures will become. Let us halt the worst of the abuses before this session of Congre sends. Lure the right hand column or rate the top of the show they d better get their changes in South Africa pretty soon because the Slot Man is getting ready to shift to the new fall news wardrobe six weeks of run up to the Geneva Summit talks the confabulation itself and the Post Summit letdown. Leaks of position stories White House denounces leaks russians manipulate us. Media the Media counterattack Raisa Gorbachev s Chic fur hat makes Nancy Reagan s headgear look frumpy and a great wrenching Battle takes place be tween our arms control firster and our linkage brigade. Each new Deal from the Slot Man pushes the previous topic a off the desk entirely. It does not become topic a most often it just vanishes into a Black news Hole. La the speedup there is no topic b. We have carpet cover age of topic a while various items about sports and the weather compete for topic z. What s wrong with the Slot Man s speedup this we never get the old questions answered became we Are too Busy shaping questions for the fresh Story. As a result nobody is looking into Germany s role a nato after Pitburg nobody asks about the non search for the murderers of Robert St them nobody is de manding information about the intensity of Monitor Zuj of the president s health. In a few weeks who will be trying to stretch our contracted attention Span to retch Down to South Africa the great Slot Man cannot slow up because the Newt keeps flowing. We on the rim Fielding the fresh subjects can holler at him to remember that the Newt b not merely what is new lest the sizzlers of yesterday too quickly turn into the snows of yesteryear. In new York times new service