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“The business of America is a business,” declared President Calvin Coolidge in 1952. As the nation’s commerical classes examine the fine print of the sweeping tax-reform bill passed May 7 by the Senate Finance Committee, they may wonder what country Coolidge was talking about. The bill remolded by Oregon Republican Bob Packwood, the committee’s chairman, appears at first glance to be a major shift in tax burdens aways from individuals and onto the shoulders of business. Yet the proposal is so subtle, so elegant, so freighted with surprise that it is turning America into a nation of accountants: millions of people sat hunched over their pocket calculators last week trying to figure out whether they would win, lose or break even.

To raise enough money to give individuals an average 6.3% federal tax break, the committee’s bill would levy an extra $100 billion on corporations. The plan would reduce or abolish many cherished business preferences, including the investment tax credit for companies that buy business equipment and the full deductidbility of corporate entertainment. In addition, many of the proposed changes in individual tax law, for example, the curbing of individual retirement accounts, will affect corporate America by changing the way consumers spend and save.

Serveral industries, including real estate developers and restaurateurs, have stared howling in protest. They claim that Packwood’s plan singles them out for more than their share of reform. The majority of corporate leaders, though, appear to be lining up in favor of the committee’s proposal. They see it as a relatively equitable plan and, moreover, one that could help by boosting U.S economic efficiency and grouwth in the long run. The bill’s virtual abolition of tax shelters, for example, could stop the flow of investment capital into ventures that deliberately lose money to create tax break. Said Robert Beck, chairman of the Prudential insurance company:”I could take that bill and run with it.”