Voters to decide tax cut?

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 17, 2007

Just in case the Senate and the House can't agree on where to cut $220 million in taxes, Senate Majority Leader Curt Bramble, R- Provo, is ready.

The Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee passed SB245, a bill sponsored by Bramble, and a companion resolution, SJR13, to put the issue of whether to take sales tax off food before voters.

"This may not be necessary. We're trying to find an accommodation between the House and the Senate on tax policy," Bramble told the committee before their unanimous votes on both measures.

He asked that the bill and resolution not be put before the Senate for a vote -- yet. "I'm confident that we'll find common ground with the House, but if we can't," Bramble said, the issue should go before voters.

Utahns have twice rejected ballot issues removing the sales tax from food, and the GOP Senate majority, which has long found reducing or eliminating the tax unpalatable, is convinced voters would do the same in a future general election. House Republicans, though, want to keep trimming the tax off food.

Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, the committee's chairman and sponsor of SJR13, testified that the ballot question would ask voters if they want to take all of the sales tax off food purchases. The state's share amounts to about $106 million and the local share about $67 million.

Niederhauser said voters would be told that sales taxes on food is one of Utah's most stable sources of revenue and many programs that help the state's most vulnerable citizens are dependent on the money that tax raises.