St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 13

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH News Analysis and Interpretation PAGES 1 12B MONDAY, MAKCIl 15, 1971 WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM: CITY TAXES THAT CANNOT BE RAISED WITHOUT VOTE OR STATE LEGISLATION Real Estate and Personal Property: $1.49 (per $100 valuation) Merchants and Manufacturers Property Tax: 25 cents per $100 valuation City Earnings Tax: 1 per cent of wages Intangible Tax: 1 per cent of income from intangible property City Auto Stickers based on horsepower Gasoline Tax city gets a share of state receipts Utility Tax Hike Favored, But User Would Pay Ry SALLY lilXHY DITTY Of the Staff SECOND OF A SERIES THE ELECTORATE READ all the glowing prophecies about the Convention Center and was unmoved. The prospect of 5730 permanent jobs and $2,100,000 in new tax income held forth by the center backers convinced little more than a third of those who voted that it warranted a 4 cent tax increase. 7 cf 1 TAXES THE CITY CAN RAISE Merchants and Manufacturers Gross Receipts tax: $1.60 per $1000 Utilities Tax 6 per cent of gross receipts Cigarette Tax 5 cents per package ceipts of the utilities is a substantial moneymaker, Last year it produced $13,434,578. It is estimated that each 1 per TURN TO PAGE 4, COL.

1 Citizen Snooping Assailed (includes automobile, cigarettes, merchants and manufacturers gross receipts tax): (Patients, Medicare, Medicaid): Revenue for the year ending April 30, 1970, was $110,368,000 SEC Study Stresses I believe the people just oppose a tax increase, not the Convention Center itself," Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes said after the returns were in. The people are going to get the tax increase, anyway, and without a brand new money-making facility to show for it. The city, facing a deficit of more than $10,000,000 because of pay increases for city employes and the low return from the sales tax imposed last July, has proposed sharp cuts in services and personnel for the new budget. Even with such cuts, however, the budget proposed last week is $132,000,000 the same as for this year.

CITY OFFICIALS are now looking at the three most likely revenue-producing options open to them: the cigarette tax, the utilities tax and the merchants and manufacturers tax. The smart money is on an increase in the utilities tax. The idea may sound appealing to the small home owner initially: hit those big utilities they're rich, their market is secure, and they can't move to St. Louis County to dodge the new tax. What many persons don't realize is that the tax is passed on directly to the individuals who use the utilities.

Instead of paying $2 or $3 more in property tax at the end of the year, St. Louis-ans will pay every month. The tax collector, however, will not be City Hall, but Union Electric, Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and Laclede Gas Co. The airport and the water department also pay the so-called franchise, but their contribution is negligible compared with the big three.

The tax of 6 per cent on the gross re isclosure Rules hands of responsible people and perhaps even add some (precautionary) material to the questionnaire," she said. The questionnaire was drawn up after a meeting prompted by a West End drug raid. In the raid, Detective Melvin Wil-moth and a young man suspected of pushing drugs were killed in an exchange of gunfire. The questionnaire asks volunteers to note the address of a suspicious dwelling unit and describe the occupant. A description of the suspect's automobile, his occupation and the regularity of his hours also are requested.

Under the heading "Traffic of Visitors," the volunteer is asked to note whether the suspect has many visitors, what time they arrive, what they look like, whether they bring packages and how long they stay. "Any overheard conversation," is another item. Another question is: "Does postman deliver packages on a regular basis?" EPSTEIN TERMED praiseworthy the women's attempt to involve residents in the health of their neighborhoods. "Whether the results will be helpful is another question," Epstein said. "The guidelines seem to reflect a very real problem of an inability to define who a suspicious person is." Epstein said the questionnaire could create legal problems if it led to harassment of all young persons in the area.

"The business of watching for delivered packages leaves me a little uneasy," Epstein said. "Especially in apartments, it could involve reading of addresses on packages. That gets into searching the mails." Grimes said that his hours were irregular and that he often had visitors "who might look funny to some people." The presence of a volunteer on his block, he said, "wouldn't make me uncomfortable, but I sure as hell wouldn't like it. He said he was aware of the "block watch" program used in several neighborhoods. "I think that's a healthy activity; it seems those people are looking for actions.

But this list implies that something is wrong if a postman brings a package TURN TO PAGE 4, COL. 1 iy SALLY THRAN Of the Post-Dispatch Staff A QUESTIONNAIRE asking West End residents to watch living habits of persons they suspect of being drug pushers has been greeted with mixed emotions. The questionnaire was prepared by Women for City Living as part of Operation Sweep Out, a program to curb drug abuse in the West End. It requests information about suspects' mail delivery, the hours they keep and the type of visitors they have. Fred S.

Epstein, president of the eastern Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Howard Grimes a high school teacher and resident of the 6100 block of Kingsbury Avenue, expressed doubts about the program and termed it snooping. Mrs. William P. Norris, secretary of Women for City Living, said she understood the fear of harassment engendered by the questionnaire. "BUT IT'S UP TO US to get it in the By CURT MATTHEWS A Wiisliinjilon Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch WASHINGTON, March 15 STOCK MARKET INVESTORS who expect to find solace, hope or revelation in the Securities and Exchange Commission report on how big investors influence the market will be disappointed.

another may have side effects in the market so that the institutional investor can capitalize on insider information by buying stock in a firm not directly involved in the merger or in a target company TURN TO PAGE 4, COL. 1 out CeMbuxH SPIN-CAST SHAKESPEARE'S Gary Player's "TRUE-AIM" STEEL-SHAFT Genuine "SHAKESPEARE" 2-PIECE 6-FOOT TUBULAR GOLF CLUBS WITH FAMED "GOLF PRIDE" ALL-WEATHER GRIPS! WITH PLENTY OF FAST-ACTION! GLASS ROD! We Bought All The Factory Had At A Big Savings, and We're Passing 0 OFF! The ponderous report 3400 pages was made public last week and probably will cause more commotion at the Government printing office than it will on Wall Street. After studying the influence and investment patterns of large investors for 18 months, gathering information from hundreds of brokers, company executives, trust investors and mutual fund managers, the SEC sifted through 800,000 computer punch cards to determine that institutional investors have little impact on stock market price movements. INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS are generally considered to be banks, trust companies, insurance companies, pension funds, mutual funds and other organizations capable of purchasing large blocks of stock and negotiating special terms in stock transactions. Although the SEC report, sent to Congress with a 38-page covering letter, contains little that can be expected to bring immediate or significant change in the current investment practices of big investors, it did strike a chord familiar to the small stockholder in calling for stricter laws about disclosure of stock holdings.

Under present regulations, any stockholder who has 10 per cent or more of a corporation's outstanding stock is required to disclose the holdings. The SEC report recommends that any investor who owns as much as 5 per cent of a firm's stock should make public this information. The SEC recommendation extends the intention of the current regulation. It suggests that the disclosure requirement include not only stocks "beneficially owned" that is, those which are directly owned and voted at shareholder meetings but also shares that are managed or otherwise controlled. IF NEW SEC DISCLOSURE regulations are extended to cover shares not only owned but also controlled, it could help clarify the extent of family and associate ownership and other indirect control by institutional investors in a given company's stock.

The SEC report indicated also that because of the financial power some large investors exert in the market place, they are sometimes provided information that is not shared with the public. In some cases, institutional investors were informed that a certain company intended to acquire another company. Had the institution invested in the company that provided this information, it would have been dealing on "insider" information a violation of SEC regulations. However, the acquisition of one firm by The Savings On To You! L. Regular $8.99 REG.

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