November 22, 1984

If the emerging efforts in Washington to overhaul the Federal tax system prove successful, they would almost certainly bring in their wake a profound upheaval in state and local tax systems, according to state finance officials and outside experts. The Treasury Department this week completed a detailed proposal to rebuild the income tax system by lowering tax rates but eliminating many deductions and exemptions. The proposals were requested by President Reagan in his State of the Union Message last January and may well form the basis of the tax legislation the President has pledged to introduce early next year. The plan is intended to be revenue neutral - that is, neither to increase nor to decrease overall Federal tax receipts - but the proposals under discussion imply a sharp increase in the cost of financing local government, most experts say. Impact on States Could Vary To the extent that new Federal regulations lessen the deductibility of income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes levied by states and localities, it would increase their sting. Residents of states that impose relatively high taxes would feel that burden more keenly, while those of other states would benefit from the Federal changes without suffering an offsetting local impact.

''There is a huge amount of this stuff. This is dangerous material.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a holiday that has sustained memories of the first settlers of New England, plans were announced today for a voyage to remind Britons and Americans once more that the Pilgrims didn't get there first. The voyage will be made next year by a replica of the Godspeed, one of three vessels that crossed the Atlantic in 1607, 13 years before the Mayflower, carrying the founders of Jamestown. The ship will be manned by a volunteer American crew of 12 under the command of George C. Salley, a 51-year-old computer scientist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, whose regular job involves helping to plan the first permanent colony in space. Virginians have always considered the Pilgrims as Johnny-come-latelies who get all the attention in the history books because of Miles Standish and Plymouth Rock and Thanksgiving. In Britain, birthplace of both bands of settlers, the name of Jamestown is practically unknown.

White House officials said tonight that Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromkyo of the Soviet Union were close to an agreement to meet in early January in Geneva to discuss arms control and other issues. An annoucement is expected in the next few days, after the last details are resolved, the officials said. The idea for the Shultz-Gromyko meeting evolved from discussions held by the two sides in recent weeks, officials said. Konstantin U. Chernenko, the Soviet leader, proposed in a letter to President Reagan last Saturday that Mr. Shultz and Mr. Gromyko get together at an early date, officials said.

Since the death of Leonid I. Brezhnev two years ago, the six Eastern European members of the Warsaw Pact have been living through what they see as an extraordinary period of uncertainty and weakness at the summit of power in Moscow. The 15-month reign of Yuri V. Andropov briefly excited hopes in independent-minded Hungary for economic liberalization in the Soviet bloc, and raised fears of the same thing among the hard-liners who rule Czechoslovakia. Mr. Andropov, a former ambassador to Hungary, was perceived here as sensitive to the need for updating a Soviet economic model, based on regional self-sufficiency, that many Eastern European economists regard as condemning their countries to stagnation and possibly unrest. Ideological Discipline Stressed The nine months of incumbency of Mr. Andropov's successor, the 73-year- old Konstantin U. Chernenko, have been characterized by a Moscow-directed attempt to tighten ideological discipline and economic ties within the Warsaw Pact. Its principal victim has been Erich Honecker, the East German leader, who appears to have badly misread the power relationships in Moscow as he embarked on a bold move to improve relations with West Germany.