Texas A&MW-* m m V •
The Battalion
[Vol. 82 INo. 138 USPS 045360 8 pages
College Station, Texas
Friday, April 17, 1987
rganization seeks records of A&M lobby group
By Frank Smith
Senior Staff Writer
I Texas A&M’s newly reorganized chapter
If the Young Conservatives of Texas has
p-quested a look at the financial records of a
ibbby group affiliated with Student Gov-
Irnment, to see if the group has used any
Student service fee money.
I Dennis Rudder, chairman of A&M’s
ICT, said his organization wants to see the
|986-87 financial records of the Legislative
Study Group, a branch of Student Govern-
inient that researches higher education is
sues and lobbies the Legislature.
I “(The records are) going to be used by
jpui' state office in making sure things are
being run right,” Rudder said.
Alan Moore, LSG director, said his
group plans to comply with the request.
“This is public record, so they’re more
than entitled to look at it,” he said.
The YCT’s University of Texas chapter
filed a lawsuit in November 1985 against
Attorney General Jim Mattox and the presi
dents ol UT and the UT Students’ Associa
tion, saying the Students’ Association ille
gally spent student service fee money in
buying advertising space for political en
dorsements in the Daily Texan, UT’s stu
dent newspaper.
The matter was settled out of court in
January.
At A&M, the request for records was
made by Rudder and YCT Vice Chairman
Richard Lonquist in a March 31 letter to Dr.
Carolyn Adair, director of student activ
ities. The letter cited the legal accessibility
of the records to the public under the
Texas Open Records Act.
Adair referred them to Mark Browning,
an LSG member who also serves as comp
troller for Student Government.
Browning on Wednesday said he has
been compiling the records and that he,
along with Moore and Adair, would like to
meet with YCT leaders when the records
are turned over.
Browning said he thinks YCT may be as
suming the LSG operates the same way as
the Texas Student Lobby, the UT student
lobby group whose use of student service
fees spurred the 1985 lawsuit.
“LSG feels they (YCT) don’t quite under
stand we’re not like the TSL,” Browning
said. “They (TSL) were making political
contributions. . . . We just think it’s a misun
derstanding and hope it can be worked
out.”
Moore was quoted in the March 27 issue
of The Battalion as saying LSG is privately
funded and non-partisan.
He also said LSG had reimbursed Stu
dent Government for all costs incurred
during the year that might be tied to stu
dent service fees.
Rudder, in a brief telephone interview
Wednesday, cited that article.
“If everything has been taken care of
with the funds, then there’s no reason for
us to file suit like we did with the University
of Texas,” he said. “We just want to make
sure things are being done as the paper re
ported and as the people are telling us.”
State Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan, was
successful last week in adding an amend
ment to the Senate appropriations bill that
would allow elected student governments at
public universities to use student service
fees in lobbying efforts, a measure LSG
supports.
No such amendment has yet been pro
posed in the House of Representatives, but
LSG officials say one is expected.
Reagan hopes
for agreement
about missiles
President remains optimistic
about meeting with Soviets
tachelor No. 1
Buca Prudhomme of Kappa Kappa Gamma asks questions of Jeff Eli-
? sh;i, left, of Tau Kappa Epsilon, Thomas DiSalvio of Squadron 10 and
Chris Davis of Sigma Alpha Mu during the Aggie Dating Game
Photo by Chris Lane
Thursday night in Rudder Auditorium. The event was sponsored by
Pi Beta Phi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon to benefit the Muscular Dystro
phy Association and Twin City Mission Inc. in Bryan.
eagan to announce U.S. trade tariffs
n Japan in retaliation for violations
'JEW YORK (AP) — The United
States was expected to slap steep tar
iffs on a grab-bag of Japanese im-
bons today as part of what interna-
Itional business executives call the
post serious trade conflict between
the economic powers since Japan’s
Ipostuar reconstruction.
igNevertheless, the executives said
iprospects remain remote for the
ianctions escalating into a trade war,
Park because Japanese officials
bow their nation could not afford
one.
■‘My personal opinion is the Japa-
Ksc are smart enough to under
hand this problem,” said Sam Kusu-
moto, president of Minolta Corp.,
maker of cameras and copiers.
“They are deeply concerned that
any confrontation with the United
States is very detrimental to the Jap
anese.”
President Reagan was expected to
announce the tariffs today in retalia
tion for alleged Japanese violation of
a 1986 agreement to open its home
market to American-made computer
chips and to avoid “dumping” chips
at unfairly low costs in other coun
tries.
But trade experts say chips are
only one factor in the tariffs. U.S. of
ficials are exasperated with Japan’s
persistent trade surplus, relatively
dosed market and failure to stimu
late its economy to absorb more of
the world’s exports.
“We jeopardize both our
friendship and the future of the
world economy unless we can adapt
to changing economic realities,”
Treasury Secretary James Baker
said Wednesday in an unusually
blunt speech to a Japanese and
American audience at the Japan So
ciety in New York.
Japan, denying violation of the
chip accord, says the tariffs violate
international trading rules and an
nounced Thursday it would appeal
for relief to GATT, the international
trading body in Geneva, Switzer
land.
The tariffs are expected to have
little economic effect on Japan be
cause they cover just $300 million
worth of goods — amounting to less
than 1 percent of the $58 billion
trade imbalance between the nations
last year.
The tariffs mark one of the first
times the United States has singled
out Japan for sanctions instead of
agreeing to compromise.
The Japanese seem to be seeking
compromise and delay rather than
confrontation.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP)
— President Reagan said Thursday
that he is optimistic about reaching
an agreement this year to limit U.S.
and Soviet medium-range nuclear
missiles but that there must be a
“substantial agreement” ready for
signature before a summit can be
held.
“We’ve narrowed the gap a little
more,” the president said after meet
ing for more than an hour with Sec
retary of State George P. Shultz at
Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo.
Shultz briefed the president about
the Kremlin proposal to eliminate
U.S. and Soviet medium-range mis
siles from Europe. The secretary
flew to California after meeting in
Brussels with NATO allies following
three days of talks with Soviet lead
ers in Moscow.
Reagan said the Soviet proposal
would be thoroughly discussed with
America’s West European allies.
“It’s clear to me . . . the visit was
very useful,” Reagan said, in a brief
statement to reporters after his
meeting with Shultz.
“I look forward and am hopeful
that we can have a summit, but it
must be one carefully planned and
prepared, and there must be some
thing that we can agree on,” Reagan 1
said.
The president added that there
would “nave to be some substantial
agreement that would make it
worthwhile to have a summit.”
Shultz arrived at Reagan’s ranch
about 7:30 p.m. CST.
As they posed for pictures, Shultz
was asked if he had obtained any
sort of commitment by th Soviets to
attend a summit in this courtry later
this year.
He replied, “I’m going to discuss
that with the president.”
Shultz left foreign ministers from
nine North Atlantic Treaty Organi
zation countries behind in Brussels
\RS creotes W-4A to cut through confusion
I
New tax form simplifies filing process
to ponder whether the Soviet propo
sal should be accepted.
It would mean the elimination of
about 50 shorter-range Soviet nu
clear missiles in East Germany a?
Czechoslovakia, and also could
volve the dismantling of about
other Scaleboard and Spider missiles
in the Soviet Union.
Soviet Leader Mikhail S. Gorba
chev offered to include those weap
ons, which have a range of 350 to
600 miles, in a treaty to scrap me
dium-range U.S. and Soviet nuclear
missiles except for 100 warheads on
each side.
By offering to eliminate the
shorter-range missiles in East Ger
many and Czechoslovakia — and
“I look forward and am
hopeful that we can have a
summit, but it must be one
carefully planned and
prepared and there must
be something that we can
agree on. ”
— President Ronald
Reagan
those in the Soviet Union over a
year’s time, as well, if details can be
worked out — the Soviets are caus
ing NATO to re-evaluate the alli
ance’s nuclear capability.
Not only would U.S. Pershing II
and cruise missiles, with a range of
600 to 3,000 miles, be withdrawn,
but the United States would not be
able to deploy new or modified
shorter-range rockets if all of the So
viets’ are withdrawn as well.
Shultz stopped short of specif
ically endorsing the Soviet proposal
at a news conference in Brussels af
ter explaining it to the NATO for
eign ministers behind closed doors.
The ministers represented Brit
ain, Canada, West Germany, Italy,
Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark,
the Netherlands and Spain.
Shultz told reporters “we have the
prospect for a good INF (Interme
diate-range Nuclear Forces)
agreement and we have the basic el
ements in place.”
By Christi Daugherty
Staff Writer
■Remember the old Coke, New
Ifoke, Coke Classic fiasco? If so,
|theii vou’ll notice something famil
iar about the Internal Revenue
Per. i< e’s cur re t situation.
■We’11 call it Hie old W-4, New W-
4|W-4A Classk situation, which by
its very nature was considerably
Pou severe than the problems of
the soft-drink company, because
whi n the IRS has a problem, it con
ceivably affects almost every Ameri-
■ can wage-earner.
■Hie problem started when the
H Congress developed and
the idea of tax reform, and
itsuowballed from there.
■.Bob Branson, IRS public affairs
; officer in Austin, said the IRS did
phat it was supposed to do, but
■ngress didn’t know what it was
Setting itself into.
■Congress told the IRS that too
tnany people get refunds, and too
ijany people are over-withheld, so
you design a withholding system
Mia s accurate,’ ” Branson said. “So
|he IRS designed a new withhold-
mg certificate intended to be more
accurate, as Congress wanted, be
cause the old didn’t take into ac
count a whole lot more stuff, it just
asked how many dependents —and
there you were.
“We did what we were supposed
to do — we became more accurate.
Unfortunately, nobody could fill
out our form,” Branson said.
The new W-4As are a response
to the veritable explosion of dis
pleasure over the diffculty of the
instructions, he said, and those
have been condensed down from
four pages to one page — front and
back — but the page actually sub
mitted is identical to the old new W-
4.
“We figure that 45 million tax
payers will need to use only the
front page — they won’t even flip to
the back (where the instructions for
itemized deductions and filing
jointly are located),” Branson said.
“And therefore they’ll avoid that
added confusion.”
But in becoming more simple, he
said, the form becomes slightly less
accurate than its predecessor, the
new W-4.
It doesn’t take into account sub
stantial non-wage income, like stock
dividends or the interest from large
bank accounts, he said. But even so,
the form is considerably more accu
rate than the old W-4, he said.
Dr. Lorence Bravenec, an A&M
accounting professor, said he had
not filled out the new W-4A but.
‘'These (new tax forms)
are perhaps not as easy
as people would like, but
ifs probably as easy as
(the IRS) can make it. ”
— Alfred Martin, Bryan
accounting firm member
“the old (new) W-4 was just impossi
ble to work with.”
He agreed with Branson that the
front of the form, which contains
seven lines with instructions for fig
uring withholding allowances, is
considerably easier than the more
complicated deduction instructions
on the back.
“It’s simpler, except the problem
with this form is that the worksheet
is on the back; you have to know
what they’re driving at. If you don’t
know that, you’re lost,” Bravenec
said.
An example of the simpler in
structions on the front of the page:
A. Enter a “1” for yourself if no
one else can claim you as a depen
dent.
C. Enter “1” for your spouse if
no one else claims your spouse as a
dependent.
An example of the deduction in
structions:
4. Enter an estimate of your 1987
adjustments to income. These in
clude alimony paid and deductible
IRA contributions.
8. Divide the amount on line 7 by
$2,000 and enter the result here.
Drop any fraction.
Line 8 causes the most apparent
confusion, as it seems a rather
pointless action that Branson de
scribed as “one of those algebraic
things.” And even Bravenec had to
work at it before he could figure it
out.
But what it is, he decided, is a
way to equate itemized deductions
with tax exemptions. In that,
$2,000 worth of itemized deduc
tions in excess of standard deduc
tions is equal to approximately one
withholding exemption.
Got it?
No problem.
Alfred Martin, with the Martin,
Thompson & Amos PC accounting
firm in Bryan, said the new forms
are infinitely better than the old,
and perhaps are the best that can be
expected. Martin added that, in
general, most people should be able
to fill out these forms without much
help.
“If they can read, they can fill it
out,” Martin said.
He said he felt the IRS blun
dered with the first revision but has
made an admirable recovery with
the W-4As.
“I think some change in the W-4s
was necessary, but they made a
rather unhealthy stab at it the first
time,” Martin said. “But tax laws
are so complicated it’s hard to make
these forms simpler.
“These are perhaps not as easy as
people would like, but it’s probably
as easy as they can make it.”
Ring orders
to be taken
until April 24
The deadline for ordering
class rings for the spring semester
is 4 p.m. April 24.
If eligibility information has
not already been submitted for
verification, students should give
the information to the Ring Of
fice, 119 Pavilion by Monday.
Students using mid-term
grades to meet the required 92
hours should also submit a mid
term grade report.
Students are required to pay
the total cost of the ring by cash
or check when they order.
Summer ring orders will begin
May 4 for students who meet re
quirements. Students who meet
requirements at the end of the
spring semester can order their
rings after final grades are
posted.