The Times-News from Twin Falls, Idaho • 5

Sunday, April 7. 1985 Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho A-5 Opinion Before tax reforms are applauded, let's examine the facts Guest columnist Dale W. Quigley know that millions of middle-class Americans will be penalized and adversly taxed if he champions the Treasury Department's proposal as is. We must take action now, before it is too late! Let's communicate these concerns so that Presidential persuasiveness permits real reform, not tarnished taxation. Contact your professional life insurance agent for assistance in communicating with your Senators and Congressmen.

These members of the Southern Idaho Life Underwriters Association will gladly provide ready-to-mail postcards against taxing away your insurance benefits. You may also write directly to Senator James A. McClure and Senator Steven D. Symms co the United States Senate, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Representatives Larry E. Craig and Richard Stallings receive mail co The House of Representatives, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. As tax paying citizens, we should be adamantly opposed to various 1 Treasury proposals to tax our life in- surance policies and employee benefits, such as group health and life insurance. Middle class America deserves better! Dale W.

Quigley, district agent for Northwestern Mutual Life, is secretarytreasurer of the Southern Idaho Life Under-writer Association, which serves the Magic Valley area. WUTIH1 Y(U) Are you ready to pay a high personal price for some minor reductions in your tax bracket? You are no doubt aware that various proposals are being offered for federal tax system reforms. Publicly, most of us support reforms. However, it pays to understand the details before we rally around the flag. Because of the mind-boggling magnitude of the deficit, the Treasury Department recently concocted a cure to balance the budget.

This prescription is presently on President Reagan's desk. In a week to 10 days, it will formally be presented to the House and Senate. The Treasury proposal includes language to unfairly tax individual and group life and health insurance products. Specifically, these proposals would: 1 Tax the value of most employee provided benefits, including group health insurance, group life insurance, pensions and retirement savings plans. (2) Tax annually the build-up in personally-owned life insurance cash value.

(3) Tax insurance policy loans as personal current income. 4 Limit the interest deduction, including interest paid on whole-life insurance policy loans. A closer look shows how devastating the Treasury proposals would be if inacted. Their tentative tax, on group life and health insurance alone, could cost the typical 35-year-old married male worker $27,100 in new taxes over his working lifetime. This is equivalent to giving the government an additional year's earnings.

life insurance policy. The IRS would levy this tax even though a loan is not and never has been income. Policy loans are legitament loans, not income. We already pay interest on policy loans. Watch-out though.

Under the Treasury's new proposal, even the interest paid on policy loans may not be tax deductable. How would you like to be taxed on a bank loan and have the interest paid not deductable? There's really no difference in these two examples except that one financial institution is an insurance company. The other is a bank. What's really fair? Our popular President is presently riding an express train of powerful political victories. Passage of the recent MX-missle funding demonstrated Mr.

Reagan's tremendous leadership and clout. He wants tax reform. We do too, and rightfully so. In order to get it, however, the president must steer this reform proposal through both sides of the isle in an "all or nothing" strategy. I'm confident that neither President Reagan nor our Idaho delegation favor any hidden tax surprises springing on an unsuspecting middle class.

They surely are against ballooning the tax burden of the average American worker. They can not be opposed to America's desires of protecting ourselves and our family's future financial security with individual and group insurance programs and self-funded retirement benefits. We must demonstrate to our Congressmen and Senators that these Treasury proposals are ill-conceived and unfair. President Reagan must On Channel 27 The proposal would result in less take-home pay for employees. It would also cause employers to freeze or reduce employee insurance benefits.

Unfortunately, we would see a reduction of insurance protection for Idahoans and millions of other American families should the Treasury's ideas be implimented. The IRS would also tax cash-value increases (inside build-up) of our individual life insurance policies. This would work like an income tax on the increase in the value of your home, even though you haven't sold it. In either case, you have no cash income. Instead, you have only appreciation in value.

With live insurance, this "inside build-up" would be paid as a death or surrender benefit. So, why tax it before? Let's look again at our typical 35 year old who purchases a $40,000 whole-life insurance policy today. The IRS rewards his plans to protect his family by imposing $5,800 of aditional income taxes during the person's lifetime. Ironically, as the life insurance premiums decrease with age, the taxes increase dramatically. In fact, our average American example could be dying at age 74 without any life insurance protection at all under the new Treasury proposal.

Adding injury to insult, the Treasury Department is also proposing that you should pay an "income tax" when taking out a loan on your We're with Twin Falls and the Magic Valley with a quality signal and quality programming on UHF Channel 27. We're with you with a dynamite ABC prime-time line-up and sizzling drama In the afternoons. We're with you at 6 10 with i 1 i "i Newswatch six-a complete report of news and weather from around the state. And World News Tonight with Peter Jennings at 5:30, and Nightline with Ted Koppel at 10:30. We're with you weekday mornings with America's 1 morning news show, Good Morning America.

We're with you for full coverage of Boise State Sports and ABC Sports such as USFL Football, Monday Night Baseball this summer and the World Series and Monday Night Football in the fall. How they voted We're Idaho's Community Involved Station, innovators in local programming and we're proud to be a part of the Magic Valley Boise that extending the program for six months would cost over $1 billion, but the proposed phase-out would cost $160 million. They argued that President Reagan was sure to veto a six-month extension of the program and pointed out that, since Congress would be going into a recess for a week, benefits would automatically be cut off. "It is unfair to yank the rug out from under people who are currently collecting benefits and had hoped or expected that they could at least run out the duration of the benefits," said the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Bob Packwood, R-Ore. Voting for a six-month extension of supplemental unemployment benefits: None.

Voting against: McClure (R), Symms (R). SENATE REJECTS AMENDMENT TO AID STATES WITH HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT. States still suffering from high unemployment had their hopes for increased aid from the federal government dashed April 3 when the Senate voted 32-62 to reject an amendment to liberalize a second unemployment compensation program. This program provides up to 13 weeks of additional aid to the unemployed in states with extremely high unemployment rates. The amendment, which would have been attached to the bill authorizing the phase-out of supplemental unemployment benefits, allowed states to offer extended benefits if their "insured unemployment rate," which reflects those receiving benefits, was at least five percent down from the current threshold of six percent.

The federal-state extended benefits program was sharply restricted in 1981, and only three states West Virginia, Alaska, and Idaho now qualify. Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington and Montana would have qualified immediately under the altered rules. Proponents of the amendment argued that the eligibility revision was necessary since many states still are suffering double-digit unemployment and the federal supplementary compensation program would not be renewed. Without the changes, they said, there would be no safety net for unemployed workers in high unemployment states. Opponents of the amendment said the president would veto the phase-out bill if the amendment was adopted, which would cut off benefits for thousands of the unemployed before Congress returned from its spring recess.

Voting for easing eligibility for unemployment aid to states: None. Voting against: McClure (R), Symms (R). WASHINGTON Votes of area members of Congress on key issues during the week ending April 5, 1985 Key SENATE Votes: SENATE REJECTS EXTENSION OF SUPPLEMENTAL UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS. The Senate approved the phase-out of supplementary unemployment benefits April 3, rejecting by a vote of 34-58 an amendment to extend the federal supplemental compensation program for another six months. The measure approved by the Senate allows people who are already on the unemployment rolls of the supplemental benefit program to draw their remaining benefits.

The Reagan administration had proposed that those benefits be cut off March 31 when the program ran out. The amendment that failed would have extended the program for all unemployed through Sept. 30. Proponents of the amendment argued that large pockets of unemployment still exist across the nation despite the current economic upswing. "A phase-out," said John D.

Rockefeller IV, "while preferable to an abrupt termination of benefits to persons now receiving them, will still mean substantial hardship for large numbers of unemployed people with little immediate prospect of finding jobs." Opponents of the amendment said 0 United States Steel I. CU FUEL. ,115 IN ljf ffZ'' CONDITIONING COSTS 1 IN SUMMER A NEAR- 1 VV PERFECT INSULATOR I r' 1 I AND RIGIDITY I 4 I ACTUALLY REINFORCES JUfgi 1 1 THE WALLS OF YOUR NPT1f1ilFl 11 I IP HOME I I II 'l' I I I Ml I DECORATOR (UJj' I 1 Jfi COLORS and HANDSOME III 1 STYLES TO LJuJ--RUw SELECT FROMI Z-- SPECIAL fZfZfZ SPECIAL CAN YOU DO IT AT HOME FOR PRICE I tku Fiiii fiii iti i LJ COMPLETELY INSTALLED ON YOUR HOME Includes All Labor Materials For An Average 3 Bedroom Home With Up To 1400 Sq. Ft. HURRY! THIS PRICE GOOD FOR FIRST 10 HOMES ONLY! i eZm' (JicTSfei design Co.

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