CLINTON PLANS TAXES AND FEES : $8 BILLION NEEDED OVER SIX YEARS TO FINANCE NEW DOMESTIC PROGRAMS.

Byline: Dina Temple-Raston and Tom Ferraro Bloomberg Business News

President Clinton would raise taxes and fees on business by more than $8 billion over six years to pay for a new literacy initiative and other domestic programs.

``There's been lots of discussion that we needed to be tougher on the corporate subsidy side of spending,'' said Gene Sperling, a Clinton economic policy adviser.

``If you are squeezing Medicare, then corporations will have to do their fair share, too.''

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, Clinton is expected to unveil plans for a $3.4 billion job creation package aimed at putting welfare recipients to work.

Additionally, the president will propose a $2 billion environmental initiative aimed at cleaning up and redeveloping abandoned industrial sites.

Those programs would be in addition to a $2.5 billion literacy program announced Tuesday.

To fund the initiatives, Clinton will ask Congress to approve:

$5.3 billion in increased taxes on the foreign sales of multinational corporations. This would be achieved by changing the formula whereby companies identify which revenue comes from domestic sales and which from foreign sales. Currently, multinational companies can allocate export sales income between domestic and foreign sales activities on a 50-50 basis. The new rule would require that the allocation be based on actual economic activities.

$2.5 billion in a wide, but unspecified, range of additional business transaction fees, including FHA guarantee fees.

$420 million through increased fees that companies pay for antitrust reviews of mergers. Under current law, firms pay a flat fee of $45,000 to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission for the cost of federal antitrust reviews. The new plan would establish a scale of graduated fees ranging from $25,000 for mergers valued at less than $100 million to $95,000 for mergers in which the assets of the combined companies exceed $500 million.

$200 million in corporate fines on firms that substantially understate income and another $200 million by eliminating the 70 percent deduction for dividends received.

One-year suspension of the $475 million credit for use of nonconventional fuels.

On the plus side, the administration plan would include tax incentives for businesses to hire welfare recipients, but details were sketchy.

Clinton also is considering a proposal to provide a tax break for homeowners who sell their homes, making it easier for them to avoid paying capital gains tax, according to early drafts of his convention acceptance speech.

Democratic congressional leaders praised the Clinton job-creation initiative.

``It's exactly what the Democrats feel the need to do - build the economy so everyone has a chance,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Sen. Paul Simon, an Illinois Democrat, said the jobs initiative is ``a good thing, but it is not a substitute for a guaranteed job opportunity for everyone.''

Daschle and Simon were among Democrats who voted against the welfare reform plan Clinton signed last week.