Beware the advocates of any tax that will supposedly be refunded to consumers (carbon tax, gas tax, etc.). These people are nothing but tax wolves in populist clothing.
Any mechanism for collecting a tax has inherent costs; you can be sure that Congress has to pay the IRS a serious commission for collecting income and payroll taxes. This means that 100 percent of any proposed "refundable" energy tax cannot be refunded. Now add to the collections costs the costs of distribution of these refunds. We would be lucky to see 80 percent of our money refunded after these costs.
Faced with facts, which are indeed stubborn things, the advocates of refundable energy taxes would eventually be forced to admit that the logical endpoint of any such program is to refund nothing at all. If they were truthful, they would freely admit that they simply want to use the power of government to force their desired behaviors on Utahns.
Voters and legislators alike may want to keep this in mind when they are approached by anyone promising a 100 percent refundable tax.
Loren Minert
South Jordan