Wall Street: Will the Big Board Leave the Big Town?

"Bulls make money, bears make money, but pigs never do," goes an old Wall Street saying. To the New York Stock Exchange, the pig that is trying to take too much money is the city of New York. The exchange has long been irked at the city's torrent of taxes-high real-estate taxes, occupancy taxes, gross-receipts taxes, state income taxes and state and city sales taxes. When

Mayor John Lindsay early this month proposed to add to that burden by a 50% increase in securities-transfer taxes, the Big Board threatened to leave town.

Exchange President Keith Funston denounced the tax as "discriminatory -even at the present rate," which collects an average of .2% on each transaction and nets the fiscally hard-pressed city $100 million a year; argued Funston, 70% of the N.Y.S.E.'s $73 billion annual business comes from out of state.

At first, city officials and even some stockbrokers took all this as mere ritual growl. Twice before, the exchange had headed off similar tax increases by vowing to move away. Last week the exchange turned from threats to action. Its board of governors canceled plans to build a $50 million headquarters in Battery Park, ordered architectural work halted, voted to let an option on the site lapse and decided to step up a search for a new home elsewhere.

Offers poured in from more than 40 cities, as close as suburban Greenwich, Conn, (where President Funston lives), and as distant as San Francisco, all eager to grab the nation's largest securities market. Even if the city calls off the tax increase, the exchange seems inclined to move at least part of its operation. With computers, such work as data processing, stock clearing, accounting and records storage can be located anywhere.