April 15, 1983

Some New York City accountants and lawyers are reporting a flood of calls from clients asking whether they risk losing their rentcontrolled or rent-stabilized apartments under a proposed city regulation. The regulation, announced this week by Mayor Koch, would permit the city to evict people from these apartments if they did not pay city income taxes. ''I've received dozens of calls,'' said Errol A. Brett, a lawyer who often represents tenants. Most commonly, he said, the callers had a pied-a-terre in the city but lived elsewhere much of the year, or they lived in a city apartment but called a summer or weekend home their primary residence.

Even the carpet is different. When Donald B. Marron took charge at Paine Webber Inc. almost three years ago, he found the dark burgundy rug on the executive floor at 140 Broadway too drab. He believes symbols are important. He wanted a carpet that reflected a vibrant, spunky company. Before long, off-white carpeting covered the floor. Paine Webber sorely needed new symbols. Three years ago, the brokerage house was sick, better known for its snappy ''Thank You, Paine Webber'' ad slogan than for its skill at managing its own money. Shortly after the 1979 acquisition of Blyth Eastman Dillon & Company, the investment banker, stock market volume erupted and Paine Webber's outdated back office crumbled under the deluge of orders. Never highly profitable, Paine Webber, the parent company of Paine, Webber, Jackson & Curtis, wound up losing $6.9 million in the fiscal year ended Sept. 26, 1980, and teetered on the brink of collapse. One of the more jolting reminders of those days was the $2 million bill for late-night cab rides for employees working late to repair the mess.

There are at least 14,000 toxic-waste dumps in the United States, and one is in this small town of Moreau in the shadow of the Adirondacks. The Caputo pit, as it is known, is neither the most nor the least dangerous of them. Like thousands of other communities with toxic-waste dumps, Moreau will never become a household name like Love Canal or Times Beach. No agency seems likely to buy this town of 12,000 - as the Federal Government did Times Beach, Mo. - and suddenly solve its problem. The story of Moreau - whose dump the Government considers the 140th-worst toxic-waste site in the nation - is not a story of extremes. If there is such a thing as a typical town plagued by toxic waste, it may be this one.

About 10 percent of the nation's adult population has opened individual retirement accounts for 1982, and an additional 5 percent say they plan to do so, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. The national poll suggested that, by April 11, Americans had put about $30 billion in the tax-free I.R.A. accounts for the 1982 tax year so far, much more than the $18.8 billion total estimated by the Treasury Department for the entire tax year. The Treasury's estimate, made this week, is $10 billion higher than the figure it provided in January. Some economists, such as Jay N. Woodworth, vice president of the Bankers Trust Company, say that the extraordinary surge in the taxexempt I.R.A. accounts could have a profound effect on the nation's economy by increasing the Federal budget deficit because of smaller tax collections, by deflating the nation's money supply and by suppressing the growth of retail sales. Treasury economists acknowledge that their latest estimate may be far off the mark and that inflows into the accounts may be far greater than their own estimates.

A dispatch from Bonn Tuesday about missing toxic wastes included several incorrect references to a privately owned French perfume manufacturer. The company - whose correct name is P. Robertet & Cie. - has never been a subsidiary of Hoffman-Laroche, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, and it has never had any connection with Icmesa, an Italian chemical company, which was the origin of the dioxin wastes discussed in the article.