Time Clock, Dec. 10, 1956

CORPORATE-TAX CUT will probably be put off another year, to 1958. Cut is scheduled next April 1 in corporate levies (from 52% to 47%), plus excise-tax reduction for liquor, cigarettes, autos, auto parts. But Treasury Department estimates slash would cost Government about $3 billion, wants another twelve-month delay.

HOWARD HUGHES has been buying up 20th Century-Fox stock, reportedly owns biggest individual block of stock, 300,000 out of 2,644,486 outstanding. Wall Street speculated that he may be trying to get control of the company since his investment is now bigger than the holdings of the next biggest stockholders, former Fox Production Head Darryl Zanuck (about 130,000 shares), Textileman Lester Martin (about 70,000), Fox President Spyros P. Skouras (about 60,000).

AIRWAY USERS' TAX is under serious consideration by U.S. Government. Though no firm program to charge airlines for airport and airway operations has been worked out, Budget Director Percival F. Brundage feels that "this is an area where some kind of user charge may be practical."

ALLEGHANY CORP., holding company headed by Robert R. Young, has lost round in long fight to avoid regulation by SEC, stay instead under ICC jurisdiction. SEC disapproved Alleghany's plan, approved by ICC, to exchange its old stock for new. Jurisdiction question goes next month to U.S. Supreme Court.

NEW LUXURY AUTOS are being unveiled at Manhattan's National Auto Show this week. Among them: Cadillac's Eldorado Brougham (price: about $12,000, with production held to 1,000 a year); Pontiac's Bonneville sports convertible with fuel injection (production limited to 2,000 in first year); Nash's Rambler Rebel, due this spring, has 255 h.p., optional fuel injection; Mercury's $3,500 Turnpike Cruiser.

FARM UPSWING is reviving agriculture equipment makers after year long slump. International Harvester will add about 1,000 employees and increase tractor output from present 150 to 290 daily at Rock Island and Louisville plants, which were closed this fall for six weeks. Company's August-October sales hit near-record $337 million, as farm prices edged up (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

CLOSED-CIRCUIT COLOR TV is coming next year for corporate sales meetings, and to show off new products. Newly formed closed-circuit Telecasting System got six-month head start on competitors by buying first 30 big-screen projectors from RCA for $250,000. Manhattan company will use projectors in auditoriums, hire RCA cameras and technicians, rent A.T. & T. wires to transmit color programs across U.S.

IBM MACHINES are going on sale, most of them for first time, as result of consent decree signed with Justice Department last January (TIME, Feb. 6). After decades of rental-only policy, IBM will sell accounting and tabulating machines, either old or new, that are installed up to July 25, 1958; from then on, only new machines will be sold. Sample prices: $1,950 for a card punch v. $40 monthly rental; $1,700,000 for 700 series electronic brain v. $30,000 monthly rental.