Features
THE BATTALION
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1981
Page 13
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United Press International
NEW YORK — According to
the federal Commission on
Paperwork, taxpayers spend 181
million hours each year complet
ing their income tax forms.
Most of that time is assumed to
be spent in anguish.
President Reagan has prop
osed cutting personal income tax
rates which should help reduce
the anguish of diverting an ever-
increasing cut of income to
Washington D.C.
The Internal Revenue Service
has been working to reduce the
anguish of wading through the
myriad tax forms and confusing
instructions on how to compute
the amount that is to be diverted.
Under a $1.2 million contract,
a consortium of private tax, lan
guage, research and design firms
has developed a new set of tax
forms designed to be less intimi
dating in appearance, easier to
understand, simpler to fill out
and less prone to computational
errors.
In addition to simplifying the
design, language and packaging
of the existing forms, the consor
tium added an intermediate form
for use by taxpayers who have
outgrown the “short” 1040A form
but whose returns are not com
plex enough to require the “long”
1040.
“When we looked at the total
system, we found there was a bias
to the long form,” said Kenneth
Studdard, a partner at the
accounting firm of Deloitte Has
kins & Sells, one of four firms
involved in the project. “It takes
more time and effort to complete
the long form.” And with more
items to run through and com
plete, the chances for error are
greater.
Under the prototype system,
Studdard said, 75 percent of all
taxpayers will be able to use
either the short or intermediate
form.
Some 50,000 taxpayers are ex
pected to receive the intermedi
ate form during the 1982 tax filing
season for testing. If all goes as
scheduled, they will replace ex
isting forms by 1983 or 1984.
The new forms look strikingly
different. Siegel & Gale, the New
York design firm which heads the
project, made the type larger and
clearer with more space between
the lines and graphic devices that
make them seem less formidable.
They also contain more sub-
stantitve changes. With guidance
from J&F Inc., a readability con
sultant, the language was simpli
fied and technical tax terms either
eliminated or replaced with sim
pler terms. For example, “zero
bracket amount” was changed to
“standard deduction” and “ad
justed gross income” became
“total income.”
In surveys conducted by the
research firm of Yankelovich,
Skelly and White, taxpayers said
they wanted more examples to
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Big screens will
change viewing
United Press International
NEW YORK — About 1 percent of color television receivers sold for
home use in the United States this year will be big screen systems, but
that will change dramatically, says Henry Kloss, who also predicts that
Americans will have “viewing rooms in their homes.
Kloss is a Boston manufacturer and inventor whose designs helped
make the big screen TV practical for the home. He told United Press
International that at least 22 U.S. and foreign companies are making
these receivers to sell for from $2,500 to $4,000 — the lowest price
being about three times more than a good standard color receiver.
Kloss, who set out 13 years ago to adapt big screen TV to the home in
the hope that it would provide incentive for better programming,
thinks it has the potential right now to capture 5 to 8 percent of the unit
home color TV market and a much bigger dollar share. General Elec
tric Corp. has made virtually the same prediction.
“I am sure that would be enough to enable the big screen home
viewers to have some influence in getting networks and program
producers to do a better job,” Kloss said.
He thinks big screen home TV will both help and benefit from the
videodisc. Many of the movies and other programs recorded on
videodiscs were intended for showing on huge theater screens or
stages and just don’t boil down to the scale of the standard television
tube. He says the improvement in reproduction quality on a 5Vi by
4-foot home big screen is phenomenal.
Kloss has manufactured 30,000 home big screen receivers in the last
dozen years but he concedes that most of them found their way to clubs
and bars. But from now on most of the big screens will go into homes,
he said, and the impact on the entertainment world will be substantial.
Home big screen TV is ideal for grand opera and any kind of
entertainment that requires spectacular staging and scenery and large
casts.
The main elements of Kloss’s original design for home bigsereen
television are three separate picture tubes for red, green and blue light
waves and a picture projection tube using a telescopic principle. Some
of his ideas are used in most of systems now on the market.
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illustrate the meaning of tax laws.
The new instructions include
such examples as how to report
interest income from savings
bonds.
There also are reproductions
of actual segments of the tax form
to show how it should be filled
out. “Tax tips” printed in color in
the margins highlight important
tax benefits the taxpayer may be
eligible for.
The group also found combin
ing a variety of tables in the same
package often leads taxpayers to
use the wrong one and thus make
mistakes. The group has recom
mended that a separate package
be provided for each filing status
— single, married filing joint,
etc. The IRS, however, is con
cerned about the feasibility of dis
tributing the extra forms.
While the changes should help
cut errors and speed the time it
takes to complete returns, Alan
Siegel, president of Siegel and
Gale, conceded they’re unlikely
to affect the way people feel about
having to pay taxes or about the
IRS.
Flint leads nation in unemployment
United Press International
FLINT, Mich. — Bill Daniels, 26,
has a disturbing but understandable
tendency to dwell in the recent past.
“When you work for General
Motors in this town, it’s half your
life,” said the young man whose
layoff contributed to the Flint area’s
15.2 percent unemployment, which
leads the nation.
“I hired in at a time when things
were great, ” he said, slouching in a
chair in the living room of the modest
frame house in the racially mixed
Beecher community. He lives there
with his wife Janet and their two
sons, 5 and 2.
“We were working a lot of over
time.”
Laid off more than a year ago,
Daniels’ unemployment benefits ex
pired in October.
His family has $1,200 left to live
on from a $4,000 Trade Adjustment
Allowance, paid by the federal gov
ernment to those whose job losses
are attributed to foreign imports.
“Now I just sit around the house,”
said Daniels. “I weighed 205 when I
was laid off. Now I’ve gained 40 to 50
pounds because of inactivity. I go out
in the garage and putter around, but
after you’ve rearranged things two or
three times it gets to be old.”
Daniels worked for General
Motors for SYz years, which was not
enough to save his job.
“When you work for GM, senior
ity is everything,” said Daniels, a
third-generation auto worker.
“My dad’s a foreman for GM,” he
said. “My grandfather worked for the
company. Janet’s dad worked 30
years for GM. The auto industry is
Flint. There would be no Flint with
out it.”
The Daniels have given little
thought to relocating to find work.
“I just don’t believe I could handle
that,” said Daniels. “Were a real
close family. Where I live now is only
a halfrnile from where I was born. I
had a cousin who went south to work.
She didn’t like it and came back.”
Janet supports her husband’s deci
sion to remain in Flint and wait
hopefully to be called back to work at
the plant.
“We’ve never been away from
here,” she said.
“We’ve never known anythng
else,” said Daniels.
So both he and his wife, who has
worked as a switchboard operator
and a billing clerk, are looking for
jobs.
“Nobody wants to hire you be
cause they know you’ll quit if the
plant calls you back,” said Daniels.
When he had an opportunity “to
go into the shop,” as they say in
Flint, Daniels jumped at the chance
because of “the money” and a good
retirement plan won by the United
Auto Workers.
“Now I don’t even have money for
a couple of beers,” Daniels said. “If I
drink a beer, Somebody else buys it. ”
Looking at her husband sym
pathetically, Janet said, “He can ”t
even join a friendly littfo poker
game. You just can’t when you don’t
know where the next dollar is coming
from. We don’t go out anymore.
Daniels has a lot of time to think
and he believes he has figured out
what went wrong.
“I”m not mad at the Japanese,” he
said. “Some of our people are care
less. I’ve seen it in our shop. And our
wages were a little ridiculous. I was
making $10.70 an hour. Sure, I d
work for less to have a job but there
are some guys who wouldn’t. Look at
Chrysler. Their company is going
bankrupt. We’ve just got to make
cars that will compete with the
Japanese.”
The experts say job loss puts se
vere stress and strains on marriages.
“The worry is there but we have a
good relationship,’’ said Mrs.
Daniels. “We can talk it out. It was
hard to get used to having him
around 24 hours a day.”
“I’ve read about the wifebeating
and all that, but being at home is not
what bothers me, Daniels said. “It’s
what to do with myself. My buddies
are working. People care, sure, but
this is a GM town and the ones work
ing have got their seniority and they
don’t really look out for us.”
The Daniels pay $150 a month on
their home mortgage, $50 a month
on a loan that put in a new furnace
and $115 a month “on a ’79 Olds
wagon I went out and bought 3Vi
months before I got laid off,” Daniels
said. “I paid $8,000 for the wagon. I
tried to sell it and was offered $4,000
for it.”
Daniels has little hope that he will
be called back to work.
Mayor James Rutherford, in office
for five years and a former police
chief in this city of 160,000, said the
nine General Motors plants in
Genesee County employ 78,000 auto
workers.
Layoffs are nothing new in Flint,
but the 15.2 percent unemployment
figure illustrates a regional crisis.
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