House Panel Discloses Potential Tax Increases

The House Ways and Means Committee will tackle the challenge of raising $19 billion in new taxes without changing the “delicate compromises” of the 1986 tax law that cut personal and corporate tax rates, committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) pledged Friday.

Rostenkowski called for cooperation from President Reagan as the committee issued a report listing a number of potential tax hikes.

“To produce a reasonable and responsible bill will require our collective best efforts--bipartisan cooperation in the Congress and the active support of the President,” Rostenkowski said in statement.

‘Government Can Work’

Rostenkowski said it is time for Reagan, who has vowed to veto any tax hikes, “to join us, as he did throughout the tax reform process, in demonstrating to the American people that government can work.”

The committee has a month to come up with a way to pay for the 1988 budget resolution approved by Congress this week. The budget calls for $19 billion in increased tax revenues next year and $64 billion over three years.

Rostenkowski will preside over three days of hearings beginning July 7 to evaluate potential measures. Options mentioned in the committee’s 291-page report include:

--Doubling the tax on cigarettes, now 16 cents, to generate $3 billion next year.

--Doubling taxes on beer, wine and distilled spirits to raise $3.5 billion.

--Increasing the gasoline tax from 9 cents to 19 cents a gallon to raise $9.3 billion.

National Sales Tax

--Imposing a 5% national sales tax that would raise $69 billion. Currently, only states and cities levy sales taxes.

--Creating a pollution excise tax based on the industries’ emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen, to raise $6.5 billion.

No effort will be made to change income tax rates, Rostenkowski said.

Although no consensus has emerged on a favored way to proceed, Rostenkowski expressed confidence that the committee will come up with a plan “that does not disrupt the delicate compromises of last year’s tax revision act and does not ask low- and middle-income taxpayers to shoulder the full burden of deficit reduction.”

The bill will be presented to the full House for consideration and later will go the Senate.