El Paso Times from El Paso, Texas • 14

Neal Templin, business editor Doug DesGeorges, business reporter Del Jones, business reporter 5464145 5464143 5464138 Page 6 Wednesday, January 14, 1987 business digest Radio station hunts buyer Dow Jones 1 jfTll tr-tS average UM r- aq 'h By Doug DesGeorges Times staff writer KFNA-AM, an El Paso Spanish-language radio station, has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code while owners search for a buyer. In its filing, KFNA station owner Fina Broadcast House Corp. said the station has $377,000 in debts and $716,250 in assets. The station's broadcast license represents $650,000 of the assets.

Fina Broadcast lawyer Bob Kirk said the owners plan to continue broadcasting while trying to find a buyer who can pay the station's debts. Kirk said filing for protection under Chapter 1 1 was necessary because the station has several court judgments against it. "Basically, we just needed time to sell the station," Kirk said. "We couldn't wait any longer. We were not getting any firm proposals." KFNA, at 105.0 on the radio dial, started broadcasting Sept.

23, 1985. Its format Spanish language music from the 1940s, '50s and '60s didn't attract many listeners. Barbara Powell, media director for deBruyn Rettig Advertising of El Paso, said the station attracted only 1.7 percent of El Paso listeners. Powell said that's not enough to attract major advertising. "Unless an advertising budget is really big, we only buy on the top four stations," Powell said.

KFNA ranked 12th among El Paso stations in the latest Arbi-tron surveys the Nielsen ratings for radio. The station primarily attracts Hispanic women between the ages of 55 and 64. El Paso's largest Spanish-language station, KAMA-AM, attracts listeners between 25 and 65 years old. AP pholo IHIWFUTWFMiatrUt I tc.22ttrouciJcn.l3 I The price is right Customers lined up Tuesday at Billy's Service red-and-white Coke machine in the office and Station in Anaheim, to purchase 29-cent-a- attendants in black caps, patent leather shoes gallon gasoline. The 1950s-era station features and bow ties.

The price will rise after the first shiny pumps, oil cans stacked in pyramids, a 10,000 gallons are sold. Times graphic 7th straight record NEW YORK Stocks shuddered Tuesday because of profit-takers and a decline bond prices, but the Dow Jones' industrial average hit a seventh-straight record and analysts said the broader market showed resilience. The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials finished at 2,012.94 points, up 3.52. 'Star Wars' waste of money, business conference is told Hard-core tax cheats, beware IRS' new computer will file returns for those who don't begin deploying the first part of a full-scale Star Wars missile defense "as soon as possible." "I'm against it," said William Colby, a former CIA director. "First, it won't work.

Second, it's dangerous. Third, it's a waste of money." Money for Star Wars would be better spent on research with direct commercial potential not just incidental spinoffs that would help the United States compete economically against Japan and other nations, Colby and others said. NEW YORK (AP) "Star Wars" is a waste of money that threatens the health of U.S. industry, critics warned Tuesday at a conference that examined the impact of the missile defense program on business. Backers of the Strategic Defense Initiative as Star Wars is known formally said it can work and will have spinoffs that will benefit other industries, from medicine to computers to the telephone network.

The conference came one day after Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said he wanted to have filed false W-4 forms with their employers, claiming 30 or 40 allowances and have nothing withheld. For many years the IRS has had authority to prepare substitute returns for non-filers, finding about 100,000 each year, but the old method consumed a considerable amount of staff time. The program has been expanded considerably through the use of computers. The IRS estimates that about 3 million people who are required to file returns do not file each year. Most of them are uncovered when the agency checks W-2 wage reports from employers and Form 1099s from interest and dividend payers.

About 2 million pay up after the IRS sends them notices. addresses. The IRS tested the new program last year at service centers in Ogden, Utah, and Brookhaven, N.Y., and came up with 55,000 non-filers. Now that the program is operating in all 10 service centers, Wauben said, the IRS expects to contact more than 400,000 people this year and to assess about 300,000 of them at least $2 billion in taxes plus penalties and interest. A year from now, he added, the totals could climb to 500,000 people and $3.25 billion.

Who are these hard-core cheats? "They're all over," Wauben said. "The income levels typically are in the $18,000, perhaps $40,000 level. Many people, Wauben added, WASHINGTON (AP) The Internal Revenue Service Tuesday rolled out the newest weapon in its fight against tax cheats, a computerized process that automatically will create returns and assess taxes on some of the 3 million people who refuse to file. "We're talking about a hardcore group of folks who have made the decision to drop out of the system," Assistant Commissioner William Wauben told reporters. Those people, he added, fail to file and then ignore a series of notices from the IRS.

In many cases, Wauben said, non-filers even ignore letters telling them that their paychecks are being seized to pay back taxes; they jump to new jobs and leave no forwarding Bus business bought ROSWELL Transportation Manufacturing Corp. of Roswell and two other Greyhound Corp. subsidiaries have agreed to buy General Motors transit bus business, officials say. Transportation President John Nasi said Tuesday the acquisition of the plants in Pontiac, and St. Eustache, Quebec, will make the Transportation Manufacturing Corp.

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HANKS ASSOCIATES, INC. 415 N. MESA 544-8188 No decision on pay WASHINGTON The Reagan administration has not decided whether to oppose efforts by Democrats to raise the minimum wage, which has been $3.35 an hour since 1981, Labor Secretary William Brock said Tuesday. But Brock indicated a willingness to "negotiate" on legislation to make employers give advance notice of plant closings. NEW YORK American Telephone Telegraph Co.

has banned pregnant women from semiconductor production lines in response to a study finding high miscarriage rates in certain chip-making jobs, the company confirmed Tuesday. NEW YORK Capital appropriations by the 1,000 biggest manufacturers in the United States rose 1.1 percent in the third quarter of last year, the first quarterly increase recorded for 1986. NEW YORK The dollar dropped to four- to seven-year lows against five other major currencies on foreign exchange markets Tuesday. Times wire reports Group wants money spent to aid border Times wire, staff reports A task force has recommended spending $4.5 million to halt the decline of the Texas-Mexico border region, an area that costs the state twice as much as it generates in tax revenues. The Border Economic Development Task Force made the recommendations Monday in a report to the governor and legislators.

The report follows a year of study that included public hearings in several border cities. Rick Rios, office manager for Epplin Guerin Turner's El Paso office and a task force member, said several of the recommendations would help El Paso. Rios said the most important recommendation would start a Border Development Commission to attract industry to the area. One person on the commission would work full time to help twin-plant industries. The Juarez-El Paso area already has the largest collection of twin plants or maquiladoras along the border.

The task force said the 16-county border area stretching from El Paso to Brownsville has the highest and most persistent unemployment rates in Texas and contends with diseases most often associated with Third World countries. The area also has some of the worst high school dropout and illiteracy rates. By improving the region, the state can take advantage of an increasing economic interest in the Texas-Mexico border that can produce jobs for workers on both sides of the Rio Grande, the report said. Rios said help also could come from starting a state revolving loan fund for small businesses in border areas. The task force also recommends Mexican students at border colleges and universities pay less than regular out-of-state tuitions.

Rios said he is optimistic the Legislature will adopt the recommendations. Each year, the border takes $867 million more from the state than it gives in revenues, primarily for food stamps and unemployment benefits. I The Associated Press and( Times staff writer Doug Des-i Georges I rV. "It's a dirty but somebody's got to do it!" J.O. Stewart, Jr.

For 1987 bachelor's degree graduates In thousands of dollars Engineering "S25JI Chemistry Computer Sixteen years ago, when El Paso Disposal first started taking trash out of your way. else wanted the dirty business. While we were working hard to provide you with more trucks, more routes, more employees and service. the big out-of-town companies just sat back and watched. To them, El Paso was the end of nowhere.

They didn't want to get their hands dirty. Now that we've paved the way, they want in on the action. But they're just talking trash. We're providing sendee! You have J.O. 's word on "We give you the best service for the money.

We always we always will. S26.2 Mathematicsstatistics $25.5 Accounting Economicsfinance $22 JO I Business administration Other fields El Paso ME "Tfie Can-Do Company" P.O. BOX 20179 El Paso, Texas 7999S 19151 772-7495 Liberal acts Disposal $20.5 1 Sales-marketing 20.2 1 Chicago Tribune Chart; Source: Endkxrtt Report I.