THE TAXMAN COMETH

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis might or might not have been happy to observe last week's frenzied auction. But one onlooker can only be delighted: the Internal Revenue Service. It stands to pick up a large chunk, maybe even most, of the $30 million or so net that was raised.

Not that John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg will need to pinch pennies. They have seen the value of the estate they inherited two years ago jump as much as two-thirds in four days, with the auction producing something for them that their mother's will did not: millions in ready cash. Alexander Forger, a lawyer and co-executor, told the Washington Post that the value of the Jackie O. estate was $45 million to $50 million before the auction. But most of that was in trusts that must give their income to charity and the principal, eventually, to Jackie's grandchildren.

Besides stated bequests of $250,000 each, J.F.K. Jr. and Caroline got the furniture, books, paintings, jewelry and other items auctioned last week by Sotheby's. The auction catalog listed them at $3.3 million to $4.6 million, representing Sotheby's best guess at the fair market value they would command if not imbued with the magic of Camelot. But when the final gavel came down Friday, the items had brought in $34.5 million.

Enter the IRS. It presumably already has collected 55% (New York State probably took another 5%) in estate taxes on the fair market value of the auctioned items. Presuming that value was stated to be somewhere around the Sotheby's catalog figures, the tax collectors can argue that the auction results proved it to be a wild underestimate and press for 60% of a far higher figure, though perhaps not the whole $34.5 million (which in any case will be reduced some 12% by the buyers' premiums and sales commissions for Sotheby's). Alternately, the Kennedys might pay capital-gains tax at a combined federal-state rate of 40%.

Until the auction, Caroline and John may have got a bigger cash inheritance from family patriarch Joseph Kennedy than from their parents. For anyone outside the inner family circle, and possibly to some inside, Kennedy family finances can only be guesswork. This much is known: through speculation in movies, liquor importing, the stock market, oil and real estate, Joseph Kennedy had amassed an estimated $300 million by 1963. Guesses as to the total Kennedy family wealth that this fortune has blossomed into today run anywhere from $1.5 billion to $3 billion. True, it has been divided among swarms of children, grandchildren and in-laws. But like his daughter-in-law Jackie, Joseph Kennedy was a believer in "generation-skipping" trusts. His grandchildren John Jr. and Caroline undoubtedly are enjoying the income from a fortune that their parents could not dip into.

--By George J. Church. With reporting by Tom McCarroll

With reporting by TOM MCCARROLL