Tax Law

Museums and libraries, facing some rocky fiscal times, may well benefit from one of the provisions in the 1991 federal budget package. Thanks to U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.), many patrons of the arts who donate artworks or manuscripts to nonprofit institutions will be able to deduct the fully appreciated value of art given to museums, universities and similar institutions. In effect, it restores a provision of the tax law that was substantially eliminated by tax-reform legislation enacted in 1986.

David H. Rosenbluth, 79, a lawyer and acknowledged expert in tax law, died Monday at the Ambler Rest Center. He was a longtime resident of Elkins Park. Mr. Rosenbluth was a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young from 1944 until he retired from active practice in 1981. In recent years he served as advisory counsel to the firm on matters of state and local taxes, corporate issues, estates and trusts. Well-known as an expert in the field of Pennsylvania tax law, Mr. Rosenbluth was an author of several books, including the 1959 volume Pennsylvania Business Taxes.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, calling the low U.S. savings rate one of the nation's critical problems, said yesterday that the Bush administration was drawing up legislative proposals to encourage Americans to be more thrifty. Greenspan also said that the Fed's recent moves to lower interest rates appeared to be keeping the economy growing and staving off a potentially destructive downturn. Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, the Fed chairman said he believes the economy, which is slowing after a peacetime record seven years of expansion, will glide to a soft landing and not tumble into recession.

Senate Democrats are caving to a well-financed lobbying blitz aimed at stopping them from imposing a new tax on the super-wealthy. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has quietly squelched plans in Congress to increase taxes on some of the richest wage-earners in the land: private equity managers. These wealthy individuals often earn hundreds of millions of dollars per year, which should subject them to an income tax rate of 35 percent. But because of a wrinkle in federal tax law, private equity managers pay only a capital gains tax rate of 15 percent on most of their income.

The fellow who writes tax law for the entire country can't even get his personal tax returns right. That's why Speaker Nancy E. Pelosi (D., Calif.) should remove Rep. Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. The post requires Rangel to be above reproach, and he has not met that high standard. Rangel admitted that he owes the IRS as much as $5,000 for failing to report income from a beachfront villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. He will end up owing New York state and New York City another $5,000 or so. This is the guy who plays a powerful role in deciding the winners and losers in every new tax law approved by Congress.

Payroll processors watched Congress' debate over extending a payroll-tax cut with frustration, and they were warning companies about the difficulty of implementing a temporary provision passed by the Senate. Payroll companies can react quickly to a yearlong extension for the first paycheck of 2012 or adjust the second paycheck to correct problems, said Pete Isberg, president of the National Payroll Reporting Consortium, an industry group. Payroll providers still do not like a second consecutive year of December tax-law changes or the Senate-backed two-month extension of the tax cut that could create unprecedented complications.

PARIS - France's Constitutional Council, in a stinging political rebuke to the Socialist government, ruled Saturday that an emblematic new law that imposes a 75 percent tax rate on earnings above $1.3 million is unconstitutional. The ruling was based on technical grounds, and President Francois Hollande's government pledged to make the necessary adjustments. But Hollande had made the 75 percent rate an anti-rich symbol during his presidential campaign, and, as a result, the council's judgment was seen as an embarrassing political setback.

For the nation's nonprofit institutions that depend on charitable donations, this could have been the year that Scrooge put a squeeze on the spirit of giving. First, on Jan. 1, came the new federal tax law, which whacked away at tax incentives for charitable donations. Then on Oct. 19 came the stock market crash. Although fund-raisers are still nervously awaiting the final tally after Dec. 31, so far their worst fears have gone unfounded. "We have a pretty good indication that tax reform didn't have a great impact on giving," said John N. Bailey, president of the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel in New York.

The jury in the federal trial of former Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Kenneth S. Harris, criminal lawyer Thomas L. McGill Jr. and a third man deliberated for about eight hours yesterday, then recessed without reaching a verdict. Harris, McGill and Harris associate Leon Brown are charged with conspiring in 1986 to fix the embezzlement case of one of McGill's clients, Joan Willis, who pleaded guilty and was placed on probation by another judge. McGill also is charged with five counts of tax evasion in which he is alleged to have evaded the payment of about $47,000 in income taxes between 1980 and 1987.

The big event last week in Washington was the signing of the tax bill, which tells you a lot about Washington. About 1,500 people showed up for the ceremony on the White House lawn to watch President Reagan sign the bill into law while various and varied politicians crowded into the picture and tried to soak up some of the excess credit. Washington is probably the only city in the world where the signing of a piece of paper is considered a spectator sport. Oh, well, at least they did it on natural turf.