Utah lawmakers will vote in January on a proposal to eliminate all reference to the Utah Tax Commission from the state constitution.
Then again, they will also be debating an alternative of creating a State Department of Revenue and reducing the Tax Commission's functions strictly to adjudicating tax appeals. A second alternative is to create two tax commissions, one to administer the day-to-day administration of tax policy and the other to adjudicate appeals.Unable to reach a consensus on any one of the three proposals, the Constitutional Revision commission voted Friday to send all three to the Legislature for debate.
That perturbed Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who is not a member of the CRC. Stephenson questioned how the commission expected two-thirds of the House and Senate to approve any measure that the commission could not reach agreement on. "It's a cop out and you may be wasting our time," he said.
Constitutional amendments require a two-thirds vote by both houses, after which the measure is placed on a general election ballot.
Commission chairman Gayle McKeachnie said sending all three ideas to the Legislature will allow full public debate on all the various alternatives. "We are caught between what it (the constitutional amendment) ought to be and what the people will accept," he said.
Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, made the motion to send all three measures to the Legislature. He said the purpose of the CRC is to look at the ideal solution, and in this case "the ideal is to take (the Tax Commission) out of the constitution."
But the political reality is that such a drastic change will be a difficult sell to lawmakers, he said. "My idea is to get more input from the public and the Legislature," he said.
The commission spent most of the morning debating the merits of the Utah Tax Commission, which currently administers all tax policies in the state, collects the taxes and adjudicates appeals. The four-member commission is appointed by the governor to staggered terms, but once appointed members cannot be removed except for malfeasance in office.
CRC member Richard Strong proposed the idea of creating a new Department of Revenue that would be responsible for administering the day-to-day activities, collecting taxes and implementing tax policy as determined by state law. The director of the department would be appointed by the governor and would function much as directors of other state departments.
The multimember Tax Commission, meanwhile, would become a quasi-judicial body whose only function would be to adjudicate tax appeals. The proposal is an attempt to "get away from the Tax Commission being everything from A to Z," Strong said.
Most members of the CRC liked the idea, but some concerns were expressed that the director of the Department of Revenue could become subject to political pressure from the governor or members of the Legislature. The current structure of the Tax Commission is designed to insulate commissioners from political pressure.
Rather than an executive director appointed by the governor, Rep. Byron Harward, R-Provo, supports the idea of one multi-member commission to administer the day-to-day operations of tax policy and another multi-member body to adjudicate appeals.
The inability of the CRC to reach consensus on the issue is not something new, which prompted commission member Mary Anne Wood to encourage members to vote it up or down but to get on with more important business. "I'd hate for use to kick it around some more. I'd much rather direct our energies . . . into accomplishing some real change."
And by shoveling this hot potato back to the Legislature, the CRC is now able to move on to other topics.