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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1986)
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The lull calls on the Internal Rev enue Service to report within six months on the leasioilitv ol launch ing a return-free system. Should the IRS find the svstem workable, taxpavers with the sim plest returns — all income from wages and interest and no itemized deductions — would be offered the option of not filing a return and al- kiwtng the IRS to cakulate their tax from documents supplied bv em ployers and hanks. Although members of Gonjrress like the idea, which President Rea gan proposed as part of his tax ImII in Mas 19N"». House and Senate nego- simple finances may be able to avoid filing tiators insisted that the IRS issue a detailed report on the cost and bene fits before putting the plan into ef fect. The compromise also recom mends that the IRS first fullv test the proposal without involving taxpav ers. The < ompromise me ludes these othet provision* on which both house* were in full or essential agreement: • Repeal income averaging, a tax saving device used bv about 5.4 mil lion taxpavers whose incomes fluc tuate sharply from year to year. The Senate wanted to save it for farmers but the House refused • Tax all unemployment com pensation. Under present law. bene fits of single oeople with total in comes under >12.000 and couple* under SiH.000 are tax free and a share of benefits for people with higher earnings can he exempt. • Rrciuire all persons 5 and older to have Social Security numbers. • End the SI00-a-person exclu sion for dividends. • lax scientific and literary awards, such as the Pulu/ei and No bel prizes, unless the* are given to c hat its. • Require am person who must file a tax return to list anv tax- exempi interest received. • Require that a person whose in come is not suhfret to withholding make quarterly estimated tax pay ments totaling at least last year’s tax liabiittv or 90 percent of the current sear liabilitv. up from HO percent un de i present law. • Raise to I percent a month the penaltv for not paving taxes when due. • Require that ever* real-estate tiansaetK>n he reported to the IRS. • Reduce to $70,000 (from $80,000) the tax-free yearly amount an American mav earn abroad • Cut to 10 percent the tax credit for restoring non-historic buildings ai least 30 years old. and to 20 per cent the credit for certified historic structures • Renew solar energy credits lor business at rates of 15 percent in I9H6. 12 percent in 1987 and 10 per cent in 1988. • Travel would no longer be de ductible if the expenses were claimed solely on grounds a trip it self was educational. • It would be more difficult to claim tax deductible hobby losses against wages and other earnings. I ne law now considers an activity is not a hobby (and thus is engaged in for profit) if it is profitable in two out of five consecutive years; that would be changed to three out of five. Federal deficit may exceed legal target by $20 billion WASHINGTON — I he deficit ip the new budget vear starting this fall will exceed the legal target b\ nearly $20 billion, and could require new actoss-the-board slashes in spending bv government agencies, according to a report released Tuesdav. I he report issued jointly by the Office of Management and Budget and ( ongressional Budget Office es timated tnat the deficit in fiscal 1987 would he $163.4 billion, requiring $19.4 billion in spending cuts to teach the $144 iMlIion deficit target for fiscal 1987 under the Gramm- Kudman deficit-reduction law. “More than a couple hundred thousand'' sokiieis and Pentagon employees would have to be dis missed and many othet programs would have to he sharply curtailed, said Rudolph ti. Pennei, direc tor of the ( BO OMB Director James G Millet III cautioned, however, that it was "really hvpothetic al" to describe the effec ts of the cuts now. “I think Ca»n- gress will respond to this," he said. Millet said the administration would he proposing new user lees for gov ernment services, including highei charges for federally-backed mort gages. to raise about $14 billion next vear. The report would serve as the blueprint for automatm spending cuts if (amgress restored enforce ment powers under the Gramm- Rudman Act. authoritv for which was voided earliet this vear bv the Supieme ( cun t (amgress also could vote to impose the cuts even without an automatic trigger sc heme, subjec t to presidential veto. liemcxratM and Republican lead ers alike have vowed to reduce the deficit to within $10 billion of the Gramm-Rudman target, the point al which the automatic cuts would he lecimred. But I uesday's report reflected ihe fact that Congress has so far filled to enac t any of the money-sav ing features of the budget for fiscal 1987. whic h takes effec t on Oct. I. If Gramm Rudman were restored beginning m Octobei. for example, the Pentagon would have to cut its spending bv hall the total cut re- qtiired, >9.7 billion, or 5.6 perc ent of the defense budget, ami domestic programs would nave to be slashed In 7.6 percent to absorb the other $9.7 billion. Civil Service and military retirees would lose then cost-of-living raises tot the second straight vear. How ever, the law protects Social Security reti|»ent* from the cutbacks, along with ma|or poverty programs and veterans compensation. Soviets say Israeli talks ‘a failure’ MOSCOW (AP) — Talks with Is rael were a failure, the Israelis were “aitogam” m bringing up the issue of Soviet Jews and the Kremlin ref u sal to resume diplomatic relations re mains firm, a government spokes man said I uesdav. Israeli officials in Helsinki ex pressed surprise at tiennadv (Gerasi mov’s sharp tone. The talks were held in the Finnish capital Monday, scheduled to last two davs. hut the Soviet delegation broke them off al ter 90 minutes. I he Israelis said they thought the meeting was positive and suggested the Soviet Union was trying to be little M to forestall Arab critic ism. Soviet and Israeli delegations met to disc uss a Soviet proposal to send a delegation to Israel to check hold ings of the Russian Orthodox Church. lunctMinmg of the Soviet in terest section al the Finnish F'mbassv and the status of Soviet citizens liv ing in Israel. Many of the Soviet resi dents are Russian Orthodox priests and nuns. Although ttie talks were ended ahrufttlv, the Israeli officials said they were not disappointed and the contacts would continue after both sides rejMirted to their governments. (•erasimov. spokesman lor the Foreign Ministry, said no further contac ts were discussed. Judge won't dismiss Union Carbide's $1.37 million fine • CHARLESTON. W Va (AP) — An administrative law judge 1 uesdav declined to dismiss a $1.37 million fine levied against Union Carbide (k>rp. by federal officials, who accused the chemi cal giant of more than 200 safetv violations. judge James Burroughs, in dismissing a company motion, said he would hold hearings on whether to uphold the fine, the largest ever issued by the Occupa tional Safety and Health Admin istration. Burroughs set no date for the hearing on the citations, the re sult of a six-month inspection of the plant in Institute that foi- lowed a series of chemicaJ leaks, including the Bhopal disaster Fhe fine has not been paid while Carbide seeks to overturn it. arguing that federal safetv in spectors ignored the alleged vio lations for years. Carbide claims OSH A must file citations within six months of al leged infractions. But OSH A law yer Marshal Harris said compa nies are required to keep records lor five vears, and OSH A can file citations at any time in that pe riod. Leader calls list of detainees ‘callous’ JOHANNESBURG. South Africa (AP) — Identifying detainees with a non-alphahetKal list of more than 8.500 names shows callousness to ward relatives who must search it for davs to find loved ones, an opposi tion leader said Tuesday. The government presented Pai- liament on Monday with the list, which names people being held un der the stale of emergency imposed June 12. It does not include ad dresses. ages or where the people were arrested. “Even in the releasing ol these names, the government displays in sensitivity to its own citizens and to ward the families of detameees,’* said David I)allmg, the opposition Progressive Federal Party ipokrs- man on justice and the media. “ This 8,500-long list is not even al phabetical ami it will take people days, il not weeks, to locate names of specitk people who have been detai ned," he said. “Detention without trial is had enough, but allowing people to be on a disappeared list for months on end without police confirmation dis plays a horrendous lack of compas sion towards ordinary human beings and then rights." Dailing said. “It also makes the job of the press totally impossible." President P.W. Botha's govern ment said Tuesday it will give Parlia ment weekly lists of people detained for more tHan 30 days under the state ol emergency, supplementing the original list. Several groups that monitor de tentions said Tuesday they knew of detainees who were not on the list revealed Monday, when Parliament began a special session. It was the first time the government had iden tified the people detained under the state of emergency. The list was drawn up to comply with the Public Safetv Act, on which Botha based the emergency declaration. The act requires that Parliament be given the identities of profile held for more than 30 davs without charge. No list was presented until Monday because Parliament had not been in session. According to the Detainees’ Par ents Support Committee, more than 12.000 people have been detained during the emergency but many were released before the report to Parliament or had been held lor less than 30 days. Two newspapers in Gape Town, where Parliament sits, published the government list m Tuesday editions. T he report to Parliament by Louis le (Grange, minister of law and or der. listed 8,551 detainees' names, newspapers reported Tuesday. The South African Wess Asscxiation had reported 8,501 Monday, but changed the figure to 8,551 Tues day. Le Grange did not provide an official count. Agreement sought before orbit Star Wars ‘needs arms talks’ LIVERMORE. Calif (AP) — Sci entists designing Star Wars sav it mav be impossible to orbit the weap ons until a detailed arms agreement with the Soviet I 'nion is worked out. Space-based weapons can be ex tremely vulnerable to attack, espe cially at the moment they are put into orbit, said Robert Ferret, chief of a unit at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which is as signed to examine and test weapons policy. “In a historical perspective, the Soviets have demonstrated the na tional will to oppose in an active and violent way actions which they find threatening, if they can." said Ferret, citing the Russian destruction of a ci vilian Korean airliner in 1983 and the downing of an U.S. U-2 spy plane flown by Gary Powers in 1960. “If some kind of agreement can be rear bed that protects the deploy ment phase for both sides, then you can get past a fairly hard point," said Ferret, who acknowledges that his troublevime questions mav have “been a thorn in the side" of the Pen tagon in the earlv stages of other weapons systems. President Reagan has strenuously denied that he will allow the Soviets to have a veto over Star Wars re search or deployment, and main tains that the program is not a bar gaining chip to be traded away for a cut in offensive weapons. An official speaking on condition of anonymity said, “It would be vas tly more desirable if we could reac h an agreement to amend the Anti- BallistK Missile treaty and reduce of fensive weapons before we deploy space-based defenses. " The State Department official. considered it unlikely that the Sovi ets would, as Ferret suggested, shoot down orbiting defenses as America sends them up, but the prospect clearly upset him. “It would be a provocation," he said. "We would nave to respond." In recent speeches, Reagan has emphasized that strategic defenses must go hand in hand with arms control, and a team of senior Ameri can negotiators went to Moscow this month to talk with the Russians about linking Star Wars with reduc tions in nuclear arsenals. However, the Strategic Defense Initiative is still in the research stage, and administration officials have not publicly cnitlined how an agreement would be structured to allow deploy ment ol missile defenses. Reagan has resisted pressure from conservative critics pushing for immediate deployment of ground- hased anti-missile missiles capable of shcxiting down warheads as they ap proach their target Much ol the research on the space leg of strategic defense is being car ried out at Livermore, a Department of Energy lab adminmistered by the University of Galtforma. Ferret and other Livermore scien tists who back Star Wars go further than administration officius in stres sing the link between negcxiations and strategic defense (George Millet, director of weap ons development at Livermore, ob jects to viewing strategic defense "as a bargaining chip to be thrown in when the Soviets agree to cuts in strategic arms." The research program has got to continue," Miller said.