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Griffin Daily News
Taxpayers told to bite back
By CARL W. RITTER
Copley News Service
In previewing Dr. Philipp H.
I/)hman’s newest book on in
vesting, due out soon, one has
to be intrigued by one of the
chapter subtitles:
“When the Tax Bites You,
Are You Biting Back?”
The good doctor, a Ph.D. who
is teaching economics and fi
nance after seven years with
one of the major brokerage
houses on Wall Street, is in
favor of us taxpayers biting
back.
Most Americans pay signifi
cant amounts of taxes need
lessly every year, the way Loh
man sees it.
“One simple way to practice
a little tax economy is through
the purchase of municipal se-
SHOWBEAT
Rock Chick Alex
is making it
By DICK KLEINER
iff
HOLLYWOOD—( NEA )—lrving Wallace’s new novel.
■‘The Word,'' is tops on the bestseller list at the moment,
and he's taking advantage of that exalted position to try
and muscle through a provision in the movie deal no
author has ever wangled.
Wallace wants the right of director-approval.
The novelist and his agent are juggling three offers
from studies for right to "The World.” And he says he
is holding out for director-approval. After what happened
to his last book, "The Seven Minutes,” at the hands of
director Russ Meyer, Wallace's insistence is understand
able.
“We thought of trying for writer-approval,” Wallace
says, " but we decided that the director is the most im
portant element so that’s what we’re fighting for.”
He’d like to see “The Word” fall into the hands of
somebody like Eranklin Schaffner or Norman Jewison or
even David Lean, who is reputedly looking for a prop
erty that doesn't involve huge sweeps of sand (“Lawrence
of Arabia”) or mountains ( “Dr. Zhivago”) or sea
(“Ryan’s Daughter”).
He'd also like to see George C. Scott “or a serious
Jack Lemmon" in the lead but he’s decided that the cast
ing isn’t as important as the director.
Wallace is just as excited about the movie version of
one of his early novels, “The Man," dealing with the first
black president of the United States. For years, that one
has intrigued movie-makers, but somehow the deal al
ways fell through—people like Sidney Poitier, Sammy
Davis Jr. and Harry Belafonte wanted to do it but it
never happened .
Now ABC has made it with James Earl Jones in the
lead. Wallace says it was made as a movie-for-TV, but
turned out to be so powerful ABC decided to release it
theatrically.
Rock Chick
Making noise around town is a gal rock singer-pianist
named Alex Richman. She’s making it in a field where
girls are about as common as car washes on the moon, so
she deserves a pat on her pretty blonde frizzy-haired
head.
Alex is a girl from The Bronx, who began by dutifully
studying classical piano. But she never plays the classics
any more, except when she gets home —her folks live on
Cape Cod—and her father asks her to “please play a little
Scarlatti for me."
And she doesn’t play or sing pop music, either. She
thinks "the Sinatra-Jack Jones” music is terrible. She’s
strictly a 1972 girl and rock is where it’s at for her.
She’s been here two years. Her first album, “Salty,” is
out on Capitol. She lives in a house far away from every
thing, deliberately, so she can play her piano at four in
the morning, if she wants to, without bothering anyone.
But she isn’t happy here. She wants to get away. She
says this town is no good for her head. She hasn’t any
friends —“maybe two friends, both girls, both in music”—
and no social life at all.
“The only fun I ever have,” she says, “is going to
places like The Whiskey and getting drunk and dancing.”
She says it’s tough for a gal in rock music. When she
was just trying to make it by playing in rock bands, she’d
call a band leader up and say she played piano and the
usual response was, she says, “A chick? No way—chicks
are hard to get along with.”
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
8
curities,” he points out. “Mu
nicipal bonds and notes are ex
empt from the federal income
tax, and, if bought right, also
from state and local income
taxes.”
Lohman goes on to give an
example:
“In 1970, some revenue bonds
were brought out by Illinois
State University to yield from 5
per cent for short maturities to
7.40 per cent for longer maturi
ties. The bonds were high qual
ity, rated AA by rating agen
cies.
“Since a taxpayer with a tax
able income of SB,OOO to $12,000
filing a joint return is in the 22
per cent bracket under federal
law, a 7 per cent rate of return
on a tax-free bond is a taxable
equivalent yield of 8.98 per
cent.”
By the same token, a taxpay
er in the 36 per cent bracket
with taxable income between
$24,000 and $28,000 for joint re
turns ($12,000 to $14,000 if
single) would find a 5 per cent
tax-free yield the equivalent of
7.81 per cent taxable, and a 7
per cent tax-free yield an im
pressive 10.94 per cent.
“There are over 110,000 is
sues to choose from and the
secondary market for munici
pals (issued by states, counties,
cities, agencies, etc. for fund
ing highways, bridges, air
ports, waterworks and other
public facilities) is active and
huge, assuring liquidity,” Loh
man notes.
“If you want a second in
come, don’t let it throw you into
a higher tax bracket,” the pro
fessor advises. “Get it tax-ex
empt.”
Can Washington take away
this tax exemption?
Lohman’s book, “The Art of
Investing” (Hawthorn Books,
Inc., 70 Fifth Ave., New York
City) offers encouragement on
this score. “So far as currently
outstanding bonds are con
cerned, this could not be done.
It would be ‘ex post facto’ legis
lation. Under Section 9 of the
Constitution, we are promised
‘no ex post facto laws shall be
passed.’”
As to the future, Lohman in
forms us that five times dating
from 1971 the Supreme Court
to save in the securities market
with a short sale against the
ANOTHER RECORD
LOS ANGELES (UPI)-The
Westchester Teen Club defeated
a Civil Air Patrol team 17,850
to 15,127 Thursday, claiming a
world record for the longest
basketball game ever played—
six days.
KgJ
k ll P‘ W
A--
UP-TO-DATE fashion.
Soviet style, is shown off to
best advantage by a model
in Tallinn, capital of Es
tonia. The Boot boot-suit
costume is designed for
vacation wear.
has taken the clear position
that for the federal government
to tax future issues of munici
pal bonds, an amendment to
the Constitution would be re
quired.
There is “mountainous
doubt” that such an amend
ment could muster a two-thirds
vote in both houses of Congress,
not to mention the obstacle of
ratification by three-fourths of
the states, Lohman declares.
The author outlines addition
al ways of whittling down our
tax bills, including the routes of
private annuities, reversionary
trusts, options, subscription
warrants, income averaging,
gifts to minors, and mutual
funds with sizable tax-credit
carry-forwards.
As would any good stock
broker, Lohman explains how
Dermatologist urges
skin cancer watch
By JEANNE VAP
Copley News Service
As days grow longer and the
sun climbs higher in the sky,
witness — the “Browning of
America!” Lithe, bronzed
bodies stretched on the sand ...
rippling the water ... lathering
on grease. ...
But “Beware of noon in
June! ” as some dermatologists
put it. There is more to overex
posure than redness and blis
ters.
“Sunshine, like any form of
radiation, is cumulative. It
builds up through the years,”
says dermatologist Dr. Robert
C. Vanina.
And the results can be as
unhealthy as they are unat
tractive: brown patches, scaly
patches, warty patches,
wrinkles, skin cancers . . .
“While skin cancer is the
least fatal form of cancer, it is
also the most common,”
Vanina reported.
To the skin doctor, that
glorious golden tan is simply a
‘‘temporary protective
mechanism.”
“The skin actually thickens
and darkens as a brown
pigment is produced by the
bottom layer of the epidermis
(outer skin) in order to protect
the nerves and blood vessels of
the dermis from radiation.
“The trouble is, with most
people, the tan doesn’t protect
the dermis enough. The elastic
tissues degenerate — and
leathery, wrinkled skin results.
“The darker the skin is to
start with, the less likely a
person is to have degenerative
changes because of exposure to
the sun,” reported the der
matologist. “Studies show that
there is always a prevalence of
skin cancer where fair-skinned
people have migrated to more
tropical climates — like
Australia, the southwestern
United States and California.
“Os course, some people are
so sensitive to light, they would
have to spend their lives in a
tunnel to avoid any
degenerating skin effects,”
said Vanina.
Others simply have to make
the choice — “between
wrinkles in your 40s and 50s and
the outdoor life.”
“Unless you are diligent
box:
“Your stock is showing a tre
mendous appreciation this
year, but next year your tax po
sition will be much more favor
able to you. You can sell the
stock short in December, and in
January you can tell your bro
ker to deliver the long stock to
the lender of the stock.
“You have carried over a
short-term gain from one year
to the next.”
Lohman, now at Pace College
Graduate School, New York,
believes the U.S. economy as
measured by gross national
product will double between
1972 and 1981. He advises even
the small investor to partici
pate in this growth by “learn
ing to formulate rational in
vestment decisions and apply
ing them irrationally in con
formity with trends.”
After all, he shrugs in print,
this is an irrational world, and
if you can understand the irra
tional behavior of others you
can benefit from it.
enough to keep putting sun
screens on, it is hard to keep
from being overexposed to the
sun,” he said. “Every day I see
patients who say, ‘I never go
out in the sun.’ But the skin on
their neck and face and lower
arms is very different to that on
the rest of their bodies.”
A large part of Vanina’s
practice is devoted to treating
the results of damage by the
sun. Although the dangers of
overexposure have been
common public knowledge for
the last five to 10 years, fashion
magazines and billboards still
advertise suntans as the
ultimate status symbol. A
white strap mark is something
to complain about— and to
show off.
“Suntan probably became
fashionable in the ’3os,” the
skin doctor suggested. “But
asking why is like asking why
did everyone suddenly go on an
outdoors kick.
"At the turn of the century,
people liked women to be lily
white. So they wore gloves,
parasols, long sleeves ... A tan
was called sailor’s skin or
farmer’s skin.”
Vanina recommended any of
the sun lotions which include
para-amino benzoic acid
derivatives as the most ef
fective sunscreens from
radiation. Old-fashioned
remedies, like cocoa butter and
olive oil, do not offer this
protection. And greasy lotions
and creams are more
beneficial than those with an
alcohol base, “because they
don't come off as easily in the
swimming pool.”
Chronic problems caused by
sun exposure appear year
round, but Vanina sees a larger
number of patients suffering
from sun allergies during the
summer months. “These
allergies could look like severe
sunburn, or scaly rash, or
oozing sores which might be
mistaken for infection. There
are also certain diseases, such
as lupus erythematosus, which
are aggravated by sunshine.
“If you want to look your best
in middle age, you should
probably stay out of the sun
completely,” he said.
OK, go ahead now. Burn,
baby, burn. But don’t say you
haven’t been warned.