Word: caplining
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When IRS Head Mortimer Caplin announced last December that all expense account expenditures over $25 must be supported by "documentary evidence." restaurateurs responded with a flurry of gimmickry. Some offered Polaroid photos of diners at work, others provided tape recorders to prove people were talking business. Many listed prix fixe meals (with drinks) at $24.95. But today, while the last of the big spenders huddle over their $1.50 martinis among empty tables, the gimmicks have given way to groans...
...turn out, Billingsley professes to see a loss of morale and to hear talk of cutting maids from six days to three, and wearing colored shirts ("You can wear them for two days instead of one"). He is also plagued by chiselers begging for blank customer receipts, the post-Caplin equivalent of a blank check...
Little Club says his business is off 35% since January, and "I've added 20% to the unemployment problem since Caplin with his little guillotine." The Colony has cut ten men from its 100-man staff; Maud Chez Elle has cut its staff from 40 to 34 to help compensate for a close to 50% drop in business. "If business doesn't pick up soon," says Vincent Sardi Jr.. owner of Manhattan's Sardi's and Sardi's East, "all of us will be in real trouble...
...ruling on expense account spending is the nation's credit card companies. Already a $425 million-a-year business, the card companies-led by Diners' Club. American Express, and Carte Blanche-hope to grow still bigger by trading on an unusual commodity: embarrassment. Since IRS Commissioner Mortimer Caplin has ruled that expense account items for entertainment costing $25 or more must be substantiated, they are counting on businessmen to avoid the unpleasantness of asking for a receipt in front of guests by flashing a credit card; the receipt for the billing serves the customer as evidence...
...cards. Applications for Carte Blanche have jumped 50% so far this month. And though many credit card industry executives had feared that businessmen would spend less with the Government looking over their shoulders, the average individual tab charged on Amexco cards in January climbed $1 to $23. Apparently, Mortimer Caplin has unwittingly helped the credit card industry to convince only too willing Americans that living on the card as well as on the cuff is the proper way to do business...