Utah should have a flat-rate income tax of 5 percent, a high-powered tax task force recommended Monday.
State residents should also get 50 percent tax credits for charitable gifts and home mortgage interest on their income taxes. And the Legislature should remove the much-hated sales tax from unprepared food, the Task Reform Task Force recommends, although it didn't specify which of the proposed food tax plans should be adopted by legislators next year.
The income tax proposal it recommended is not greatly different from the one forwarded by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. several months ago.
"We are very happy" with the new alternative unveiled Monday, said Huntsman spokesman Mike Mower.
The new 5 percent income tax plan will have some "winners and some losers" as far as who pays a bit more or a bit less in tax, said Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland. Dougall and task force co-chairman Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, worked out the differences over the past two weeks among several income tax reform suggestions.
But, said Dougall, compared to Huntsman's earlier proposal, "the winners will get less of a tax cut; the losers less of a tax increase" under the new plan, nicknamed H3.
Dougall anticipates a single bill — "Individual Taxpayer Relief" — with both income tax changes and food tax repeal included.
The 15-member task force has held dozens of official meetings — not including countless private sessions between some members — and half a dozen public hearings to come up with 20 or so specific tax reform recommendations for the Legislature. A complete list of its recommendations can be found on the Legislature's Web site: www.le.state.ut.us.
"We're all pretty much agreed" that the state and local sales tax should be removed from food," said House Majority Whip Steve Urquhart, R-St. George and task force member in moving that the four main plans discussed by the task force should be sent to the Legislature as a whole. "The difficulties we have are with the details."
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said sending the issue forward to the full Legislature without a specific proposal is the right thing to do.
"The decision (on which food tax repeal plan should be adopted) should be before the body that will make it — the Legislature," said Valentine, who is a member of the task force and who believes the repeal should be made without raising or shifting taxes. The $166 million revenue loss from axing the food tax can be made up from surpluses and cutting programs, he said.
Several weeks ago, House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, and Urquhart suggested removing the sales tax from food and increasing the sales tax rate slightly on nonfood items so the state doesn't lose all of the $166 million the food tax brings in. Curtis even said he has the votes in the House to pass it.
Faced with two different plans supported by their GOP leaders, the task force clearly couldn't reach a consensus and opted to just pass along several options.
Not recommending a specific change, as the task force has done with its other proposals, "is a cop-out," said task force member Rep. Gordon Snow, R-Roosevelt. Snow said the task force, which includes House and Senate leaders from both parties, Huntsman chief of staff Neil Ashdown and Utah Tax Commission Chairwoman Pam Hendrickson, has a duty to be specific on which tax changes are the best.
Rep. Roz McGee, D-Salt Lake, a longtime proponent of removing the sales tax, was also disappointed the task force only passed a "concept" and did not support a specific proposal.
"Voting things out as a concept is an abdication of the responsibility we had as a task force," she said. "We've worked for seven months. . . . To vote things out that are concepts is a disservice to our fellow legislators and to the public."
Poll after poll has shown Utahns hate the food tax. A Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV survey by Dan Jones & Associates conducted earlier this month showed 38 percent favor cutting the tax while raising the rate on nonfood items slightly (so state programs won't suffer), 26 percent said the state should remove the tax and cut state programs as needed, while 18 percent said lawmakers should give a $75-per-person income tax rebate in lieu of actually removing the sales tax from food. Those options, and perhaps others, will now be considered by the 2006 Legislature.
How to help counties, cities, special improvement districts and the so-called "boutique sales tax" entities, like the Utah Transit Authority and ZAP, which also levy small sales taxes, must also be determined.
Salt Lake City, for example, would lose $3.7 million if it lost its share of the food tax and were not otherwise compensated. Some small communities, where local grocery stores generate much of the tax, would lose up to 28 percent of their sales tax revenue if the food tax were repealed.
Lobbyist Roger Tew said the Utah League of Cities and Towns must oppose removing the sales tax from food unless "we can find a plan that does not adversely impact individual cities economically." Unlike the state, local governments are not awash in surplus revenue.
A recent Tax Commission report showed the state running an $85 million surplus in just the first four months of this fiscal year. The state could end the year with $300 million in surplus if tax collections remain strong.
In fact, the task force ended up recommending more than $100 million in tax cuts — even larger tax cuts if some of the "conceptual" tax changes are all given at one time.
The H3 alternative was approved without task force members being able to see how its different options affect various taxpayer groups — like seniors, single people or families in different income levels. Those numbers will come before H3 is reviewed by an interim study committee in January.
But several task force members and tax Commissioner Bruce Johnson said H3 is not much different than plans talked about for months — plans that have involved making income/family-size charts available to the public.
"The 5 percent level was picked to give a $23 million tax cut" to all taxpayers, Dougall said.
People who saw tax cuts under Huntsman's plan will still see them, just not as large. And fewer people will see tax increases under H3 than under Huntsman's plan.
If the Legislature and Huntsman decide to allocate $40 million or $60 million to income tax cuts, then that 5 percent rate could drop to 4.9 percent, 4.8 percent or lower, said Dougall.
"And some people who would have seen slight tax hikes will actually see tax cuts instead," he said.
Unlike the sales tax proposal, the task force did support a statewide sales tax rate of 6.4 percent, which was proposed by Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan. The rate would include tax collections for the state, municipalities, counties and some boutique taxes.
Bramble said the deep review of the state tax system was commendable and is already successful.
"The basic premise of tax reform is that the system is drastically broken and it needs to be fixed. That was where we started," he said. "What we found was that there are a wide divergence of competing interests, and in many cases, our current system may be the best way to go."
E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com; jloftin@desnews.com