European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 28, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes William f. Buckley one less capitalist bogeyman to kick around the nightly anti capitalist gig by lbs news last thursday was an account of How notwithstanding the 1986 tax Law a dozen Large . Corporations had paid Zero lax last year. In some cases icy had received a refund from the internal Revenue service. Flash to a Street filled with men and women on their Way to work. Pause and interview subject one Well must be Nice to be paid by internal Revenue. Never happened to Nie. I pay my  then subject two the question is How do they get away with it and the voice Over it s the american people who Are paying the lanes these corporations Aren t  pravda could t have done a belter Job pre glasnost. Post glasnost the anti capitalist Slang would have been less pronounced. A few observations 1 any corporation that pays More taxes than it is obliged to pay under the Tow should tic Down and submit Grace fully to a takeover. Its accountant should be fired. 2 there is no Way in which a Layman can ill whether taxes Are owing or not owing. Lbs flashed inc profit figures for general motors and ism neither of which paid a lax both of them receiving refunds. There was vague talk about some of the excuses Given by such corporations for not paying taxes among them that they were gelling credits for new machinery or that they were being reimbursed for taxes paid abroad what Ever the distribution of reasons for not paying taxes each of those reasons is the result of congressional legislation. If there is a loophole there that needs correction eliminate or modify that Loop Hole. Do not agitate Over someone s tax ing advantage of that loophole. And Bear it in mind that what some people Call a loophole others Call a lax incentive or Public policy. It is whichever of the three you choose to Call it when by giving Money to the red Cross you reduce the amount of tax payable to inc government. 1 Hilaneh rapists greatly re Duce inc lax they pay. The total income Flora Lewis tax paid last year by corporations was i8j billion compared to 1392 billion paid by individuals. The value of inc deductibility of Home mortgage interest reduces taxes by s3i billion. The value of the deductibility of pension con Ribu Lions reduces taxes by s46 billion. The value of health Insu Ranee premiums paid by the employer for their employees costs the government �28 billion. 3 by the most plausible test corporations arc paying too Large a tax Ai inc current level. Ask yourself inc question if instead of levying taxes on inc corporation its earnings were Loho directly to the shareholders and were taxed at the Rale those shareholders pay taxes would the government s revenues in crease or decrease answer they would decrease by about 40 percent. This Means that the earnings of a company which earnings belong to the shareholder arc at the current Rales of taxation subject to a surcharge of 40 percent. It is a form of hidden taxation against the shareholder. 4 the Case against any corporate tax of any kind is logically overwhelming. The corporation As far As the govern ment is concerned is merely a convenient vehicle for raising Money. But begin Ning in inc Early 70s, less and less Money was paid by corporations because they were less and less profitable. You cannot tax a corporation that does not make a profit in 1972, corporation taxes made up is percent of total Federal taxes. By 1981, icy had been reduced to 10 percent. From an average of 8 percent in the 1981-86 period they have risen to 10 percent in 1987 and arc projected to increase to 12 percent by 1991. Suppose that the entire corporate lax was eliminated. The paper loss at $84 billion would be slightly More than the annual loss from pension contributions and health insurance premiums but the loss would diminish by an in crease in the taxes of shareholders. And inc Cost of living would reduce. There Are endless arguments concerning the exact incidence of corporate taxation. It is Safe to say thai roughly it Falls one half on Consumers they pay More for corporate products because corporations need to pay taxes when owed and one half on shareholders their dividends Are reduced on the other hand if their dividends were higher so their taxes would be higher. The net of it is that corporations face an unnecessary and burdensome overhead. This increases the Price of their products diminishes our exports abroad and causes every other seminar Al business schools and tax institutes to worry about whether this expense or that one is or in to should be or should t be deductible. If nothing were deductible because there is no tax to pay Jimmy Carter could go to pasture without worrying about the three Martini lunch. The country would Prosper. And lbs would have one less capitalist bogeyman to kick around. In re Tai synd Iau Dukakis Bush should listen to Venezuela s Perez Carlos Andres Peres is campaigning for president Loo of Venezuela. He came to the United slates with some new ideas about dealing with what he Calls the historic misunderstanding Between the . And latin America. He is almost certain to be elected but inc visit Here May help. The two . Candidates ought to listen to him be cause the most urgent and perhaps most difficult for eign affairs questions facing the next president will be in this hemisphere. The Reagan administration has focused on minor countries the pro communist government in Nicaragua the pro drug government in Panama. Bui these Are just the edges. When Andres Peres or Cap As Many Call him was president of his country in 1974-79, the big issues were nationalization military regimes human rights. His action Pemo Pralica party a member of the socialist International was chary of foreign  and the literature of previous decades As he put in was about anti imperialism Hal is anti american now the issues arc debt drugs demography and he sees them As difficulties that neither the . Nor the latins can solve by themselves. Instead of being so Touchy about sovereignly he says latins should Sec that drug traffickers arc the ones who breach our  he is critical of bad . Policy on Panama and worries that Venezuela risks going the colombian Way. He. Urges let latins help. If we criticize the . For intervention we can t refuse to accept our Respo Sibili  Cap called for an internal Pinal conference on drugs that would organize International police cooperation and a fund to promote substitute crops where drugs arc grown As a livelihood it can t be solved one country Al a time or by concentrating on traffickers or Consumers it is absurd and unfair to blame the . Government and society As Many latins do he says. He considers drugs a world problem stemming from inc inequities of International  he was on his Way to a High level meeting at har Vard on debts. That is linked to drugs because just servicing debt has made latin nations poorer than they were a decade ago. Which threatens to undermine their new democratic regimes reopen the Way for Mili tary rulers who almost always squander resources and renew the vicious Circle of misery and illegality. The fresh approach comes in a willingness to set aside past grievances and to admit Hal we All made mistakes the developing countries the ., the inter National organizations. He said our countries have Learned a lot from these crises. Venezuela has changed a lot in the past 10 years we now value work. The International system puts the main Burden for accommodation on the poor the workers. Our country needs written agreements with labor management and gov Erna Cal to spread the  Short term arrangements through the if Haven t worked Cap said. The situation is getting worse. The sacrifices we made were useless and things have be come  there is no shortage of proposals for longer term More equitable solutions that would Permil debtors to grow out of their sinkholes. But they Aren t getting very far for Lack of leadership. Like Many other latin Lead ers Cap warns that mounting economic distress could bring people to the streets and then the military into  people Are becoming educated Amqui the costs of military dictatorship. Argentina is paying the Bills accumulated by three of  and most venezuelans now think the Way out has to be democracy Cap says. Still the dictators and the socialists have come and gone and the social problems remain what is there 10 assure that new help new indulgence would bring better results we have to put our own House in order to seek healthier economies Cap says. We must accept that supervision of the use of credits by. International organizations is not undue foreign intervention the debtors have to see the need of restructuring and Mak ing adjustments progressively. The problems were there before the  the latin View he sees inc need above All to go for a Frank understanding with the great nation that will continue to play a very important role in the re Gion and the world this is an important offer from a latin nationalist who has swung around to talk about interdependence and a new sense of sovereignly As Candor and  it is a willingness to take account . Needs As Well. If the next . President in t prepared to respond the Cost of the damage will weigh heavily on the . And latin America new Vortis ten Birtt Cal