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Show Halt akf arilnmr Tuesday Morning Section December 24, 1985 Page 8 A States Deserve An Opportunity To Adjust Unitary Tax Laws Neither Utah nor any other state should be deprived of authority to make local business taxes balanced and fair. Which is why any congressional attempt to outlaw the whose parent corporation homes are outside the United States. These adjustments would seem to answer White House objections. so-call- unitary tax is a mistake. At this point, Utah and six other states use the unitary tax process, with which corporations in the seven pay some kind of state income tax based on all earnings, including those derived from foreign markets. But the concept contradicts Reagan administration efforts to straighten out worldwide trade problems, and a U.S. Treasury Department prepared bill has been introduced in Congress to rein the seven states into line. As a matter of fact, Utah doesnt need this sort of federal discipline. An amendment to this states unitary tax law is already in the works. It isnt unanimously hailed, but it is what local tax legislation should be permitted to do. Consistent with his administrations declarations to improve Utahs economic position, Gov. Norm is endorsing a unitary tax revision designed by the State Tax Commission and others which embraces the waters edge restriction. This, in effect, applies the state corporate franchise tax to only earnings a multinational firms Utah operations would produce. It also would excuse from Utahs 50 percent tax on dividends to subsidiaries those Utah subsidiaries Ban-gert- er Evidently, those unitary tax laws which assess against a corporations ofworldwide entire earnings fend the foreign firms affected, along with their governments and, now, the Reagan administration. Fears of retaliatory taxation against U.S. companies operating abroad led to the proy tax law. posed federal to be But the states ought given a well. to as chance respond While some argue Utah should tax no dividends of multinational companies just because they have a Utah outlet, that overlooks the principle of elemental fairness. Why should only domestic businesses be compelled to pay those taxes? If the state must rely on corporate franchise and other business taxes, all who find a business advantage in Utah should pay a reasonable share. If factoring a worldwide corporations income into its state tax obligation becomes a world trade impediment and it obviously has opportunity for should be such excises back scaling anti-unitar- given. Utah is attempting to scale back, at an estimated $9 million loss in state revenue. Thats a good faith effort which shouldnt be steamrollered by a All That Sex Stinks Up Perfume A ds Chicago Tribune Service Once again, the perfume companies are shamelessly exploiting a profound religious holiday to make me part with large amounts of my money. Once again, they will fail. Chanel is hawking its essence with the same psychotic experience its been using for three or four years now. A railroad track turns into piano keys, a Boeing 747 makes love to San Franciscos TransAmerica Pyrawoman says Charles and mid, a has a deeply pleasing inner sexual thought. Perhaps she is a groupie left over from the visit of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. I am tired of the Charles woman. If WASHINGTON red-haire- d federal decree. An Outstanding Utahn President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, and in tribute to the fallen president, commercial radio and televison stations suspended their normal scheduling until after his funeral, limiting their broadcasts to music and news. Part of those special efforts, on the Sunday evening following the presidents death, was a national broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. ,, For a nation wrapped in gloom and uncertainty, that broadcast was a lift. For many Americans it proved d singular restorer of hope and faith. It was one more triumph for the Tabernacle Choir during the tenure of Richard P. Condie as its conductor from 1957 to 1974. 17-ye- ar Still Ticking Mr. Condie, who died Sunday at age 87, led the choir to new professional heights and greater national and international recognition than it had ever before enjoyed. Mr. Condie demanded, and won, quality from the choirs members. The result was not only personal satisfaction for its members, but it proved the path to its commercial successes. Most notable, and popular, was its recording of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which earned the choir one of several coveted Grammy Awards. Mr. Condies leadership, combined with his own special musical talent, produced a long association with Columbia Records that included perfor- mances with other premier musical organizations like the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Symphony, the National Symphony and the Cleveland Symphony. Josef Hebert, an Associated Besides the Battle Hymn of the Press aviation and transportation writer, notes of the venerable Douglas Republic, the choirs famed reperDC-- 3 Messiah, transport, The most durable of toire includes Handels and the The DC-3Lords n s is perennistill flying for Prayer, the Airlines and sets a really popular The Mormon Tabernacord every time it takes off. To date it cle Choir Sings Christmas Carols. has more than 88,000 hours in the sky, What was, for the most part, a reequivalent to nearly 10 unbroken gional institution, well established years of flight. and regarded in the Intermountain That sounds as though that old adWest because of its historical associavertising slogan, It takes a beating tion with the Church of Jesus Christ of and keeps on ticking, was applied to Latter-da- y Saints, became under Mr. the wrong product. Condies baton an American The DC-3- , along with its military institution. has been around counterpart, the a half century. Douglas Aircraft Co., a The Tribune offers its sympathy to Mr. Condies family. To an appre-ciath- e predecessor firm of McDonnel Douglas, built 10,629 of the planes between and global nationwide 1935 and 1945. Now 2,000 of them are audience, he has bequeathed a uniqueestimated to still be ticking somely splendid and powerful blend of muwhere in the world. sical harmony, Utah nurtured and It is doubtful if any automobile Utah perfected. His friends and colmanufacturer, anywhere, can find 18 leagues of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir can rejoice that they were able percent of any of its models still runoff the to know and work with an outstanding came ning 50 years after they Utah artist and citizen. line. assembly H. Province-town-Bosto- C-4- 7, on my wife, let them bring back Catherine Deneuve, whom Id follow anywhere, though probably not to the roof of the TransAmerica Pyramid. Another perfume called Lauren Hutton, or Barbara Hutton, or perhaps E.F. Hutton, commercial to a devotes an entire woman in riding togs madly galloping and jumping a horse. Sixty seconds of that will make anyone smell of dank leather and horse sweat. Is the perfume strong enough to cover this aroma, or does it smell like that? Horses also appear in a commercial for of a sort. In a Chaps, a perfume for men disclaimer at the beginning, an announcer notes that Chaps is not just for men who ride horses. Indeed. The fellow they feature wears a woolly sweater, tight pants, bangs and an expression very much like Audrey He may like to dab Hepburn in some behind his ear, but give Lee Marvin or Charles Bronson a bottle of this stuff and theyd probably drink it. English Leather has a saddle on its label but not even a horseshoe in its commercial, which has to do with this suburban lout who comes down the stairs playing football with himself. Spotting his wife, who is busy reading on the couch, he tries to involve her in the game, lateraling a couch cushion to her and dodging back and forth behind a chair. If I were she, Id throw him, the cushion and his English Leather out the door, with the admonition to get a horse though if he did, hed probably jump it over the couch. Obsessions television commercial has a pouting young woman surrounded by a group of pouting young men. Someone, I think, has stolen their maypole. In Obsessions magazine ad, however, a naked young woman is quite thoroughly surrounded by two naked men. I gather theyre not wearing mid-giggl- e. Chaps. I much prefer Obsessions magazine ad to the one for Bill Blass's perfume, in which Bill himself lists his likes about women. He likes: A woman whose best friend is a man. A woman who loves dogs that are bigger than cats. Who enjoys getting dressed for dinner at home. Who sings, loud, even though shes tone deaf. A woman who gets mad. And isnt afraid to say so. A woman who sends a man flowers, just because it's raining. Who doesnt think its extravagant to buy two bottles of perfume at once. Except for the two bottles of perfume, and possibly the flowers, this is a perfect description of Marie Dressier in Tugboat Annie." I was much taken with the ad for Otard and its elegantly shaped bottle, until I looked closer and discovered its a cognac. Then I was even more taken with it. gray-haire- d Speed Stick. A son is a person who assumer your et was for impeding traffic. I Defusing Latin America Cox News Service WASHINGTON Upper-crus- t Americans versed in the nuances of foreign policy often view Latin America through a prism of ignorance. Eastern Establishment think tanks prefer to deal with such supposedly cosmic issues as the future of the Atlantic Alliance and managing the Soviets. Meantime, President Reagan gazes westward, linking Americas future with the strong economies of the Pacific Basin. Yet history shows that wars arise when great powers back rivals in areas lacking in political and economic stability. The Balkans played such a role in triggering the First World War. The need now is to ensure that Latin America doesnt become the firing pin for World War III. In Geneva, Reagan told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that he had become increasingly alarmed by Soviet and Cuban behavior in the region. He claimed the Sandinistas had betrayed the 1979 revolution and were bent on spreading Marxism beyond Nicaraguas borders. If the Sandinistas are true Marxist-Leninistthats what you would pxpect them to do. The real question is whether Reagans efforts to topple them prove s, My favorite ad, by my favorite photographer, Helmut Newton, is for a perfume named after my favorite thing in life, Decadence. It depicts an elegant couple being and naughty while leaning backwards judging from her expression, rather painfulover the balustrade of a staircase in a ly grand old Parisian hotel. I tried to imagine myself in that picture instead of him, and laughed. I tried to imagine anyone I knew in the ad, including my now and laughed. I looked closely at the actual couple in the ad and laughed some more. Maybe my wife would like a Mennen ! Andrew J. Glass tick- counter-productiv- e. that, Reagans approach tends to mask the fact that hemispheric politics are of vital concern to the United States, but not to the Soviets. Look at the geography: Managua is 7,000 miles from Moscow. But its a lot closer to Miami than Miami is to Washington. Until Fidel Castro met Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviets had no track record in Latin America. Their Cuban experience hasnt done much to enhance the communist image among poor Latins, whose chief goal is to better their lives and that of their children. These impoverished people wont be moving to Russia. But, legally or not, they enter in droves through Americas porous southern border. In 1950, Latin America was 70 percent Beyond As a Family, rural and 30 percent urban. Today, those figures are reversed. Thats the real revolution which needs the rapt attention of U.S. policymakers. This rapid transformation of Latin so- ciety, coupled with inevitable demands for improved education and more public services, places intolerable strains on fragile economies and on governments that lack the core stability provided by democratic traditions. Rather than coping with these key issues, Reaganites diddle Sandinistas. Reagan could win the war if he intervened directly. But he lacks the will to do so. What the president doesnt say is how such overblown rhetoric solves real problems. The Latin population of the United States approaches 25 million people, some one in ten. That makes the United States the fifth largest Latin American country in the hemisphere, about the size of Colombia or Argentina. Latins account for 30 percent of Californias population. Some 55 percent of elementary age Los Angeles school children are of Hispanic origin. What will happen when they attain their political majority, as they surely will? What might occur when a young, and relatively poor, Latin work force, concentrated in the South and West, pays into a Social Security kitty that largely supports an aging, and relatively well-ofn retired population? The potential for generational and ethnic hostility, fed by demagoguery in both camps, is evident. That situation could prove all the more explosive because the Latin minority remains the least integrated major group of immigrants in U.S. society. It boils down to a question of wildly misplaced priorities. If White House aides were to divert a tenth of the pressure that they now put on Managua to banks which some Panamanian banks launder much of the worlds dirty drug money they would serve the national interest in a more profound manner. g f, non-Lati- It Might Work The Washington Post WASHINGTON This being the season of extravagant hope and rampant goodwill, let me propose as an exchange of gifts that we pretend, at least for a time, that we are not a nation of warring factions but a family. It wouldnt mean that our differences, which are real and serious, would evaporate, but it might give us a better chance to resolve them. I said resolve, not win. There are no winners in family fights, a fact that took me an embarrassingly long time to learn. In the early days of our marriage, I devoted an enormous amount of energy to winning arguments with my wife. I used to argue as though we were lawyers and there was, on the other side of some invisible curtain, a wise and fair judge who would hear what we said and award one of us a judgment. And, because I enjoyed arguing, and had learned to do it well, I was racking up an impressive string of victories. And my marriage was getting shakier and shakier. It finally occurred to me that all the victories I thought I was winning werent worth a thing to anybody. My wife might stop arguing, because she knew I was comfortably ahead on points, but she didnt stop being unhappy. And because she was unhappy, she didnt concern herself with making me happy. She was miserable, I was miserable, and my forensic victories were ashes in my mouth. Then one day I looked at Sondra and recognized what any idiot would have recognized years earlier: She wasnt the enemy. She was my s'rongest ally, and it served no purpose to defeat her. The smart thing, I finally learned, was to stop trying to win and to try instead to resolve the problem that prompted the argument. I commend the technique to the family we call America. What are the arguments to which it might be applied? Start with these two: affirmative action and comparable worth. Its perfectly easy to win an argument against either of them. You simply ask the proponent whether he seriously believe" that jobs or promotions or college scats should be parceled out on the basis of race, or that some statistician's weighted numbers are a better mechanism than the market itself in determining the relative worth of a job. Whether the response is a sophisticated rejoinder or mere angry sputtering, it wont settle the dispute. One side or the other might get the better of the argument, leaving the loser frustrated and bitter, but the issue will remain unresolved. But where is it written that we have to behave like warring lawyers? If we addressed the matter as members of a family, we might try understanding, rather than defeating, each other. We might agree, for instance, that minorities and women are still shortchanged when it comes to opportunity. It doesnt follow that we would all agree on affirmative action or comparable worth, but we might admit that these awkward ideas represent attempts to address real problems. We might William Raspberry not agree, even as family members, on whether the principal cause is prejudice, habit, or lack of access to the networks that work for the already advantaged, but we might acknowledge that there is a problem to be resolved. And if one side acknowledges that the grievance has a basis in reality, the other might admit its own contribution to the problem: whether inadequate preparation, insufficient ambition and commitment, or inappropriate attitudes. If we got that far, we would have a pretty good chance of g the matter. And not just on issues of race and sex. The same approach might help us resolve family squabbles ranging from education and welfare to the environment and nuclear disarmament. It wouldnt resolve everything; on some issues we really are enemies. But a good many of the things that divide us are nothing more than different approaches toward compatible goals. Wed have a much belter chance of reaching those goals if we could see each other as members of a family rather than as enemies to be defeated. I t |
