INSURANCE: Tax Compromise

After years of trial-and-error taxation, the nation's 1,272 life insurance companies moved a step closer toward accepting a permanent formula for totting up—and increasing—their federal tax bill. The companies (in which 109 million Americans have policies with a face value exceeding $458 billion) last year paid $292 million, based on a stopgap law that levied the regular 52% corporate income tax on up to 15% of their net investment income. Industry executives who jammed the committee room for hearings last week heard Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D. Ark.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Internal Revenue...