Governor to 'donate' heavily to tax coffers

He'll put all of that stock into a trust — "a blind set of investments such that there is never the perception of a conflict of interest" — as he handles state business over the next four years, Huntsman said.

The stock opened at $23 a share last Friday. Various industry analysts guessed last week that Huntsman stock, trading under the logo HUN on the New York Stock Exchange, would climb to around $34 a share through the spring.

Thursday, the stock closed at $25.85.

The governor noted that while he is asking legislators to phase out the state's corporate income tax — allowing him to "sell" Utah as a good place to do business and thus drive up overall state tax revenues through economic development growth — he is not seeking repeal of the capital gains tax.

State Tax Commission chief economist Doug McDonald said the capital gains tax has historically fluctuated greatly and is one of the most difficult taxes to estimate in figuring out revenue estimates.

In part, that's because state budgeters never know when large groups of Utahns may sell their stock or when wealthy individual taxpayers may sell out large holdings.

"The capital gains tax dropped like a rock" in the early 2000s, noted McDonald, when thousands of Utahns lost money in the markets when tech stocks crashed. But it has been gaining since.

Asked last week if maybe legislators should give him a bit more of what he wants out of the budget next year because he's going to be paying such a large chunk of state tax, Huntsman just laughed and waved away the reporter's question.

Still, if legislative leaders were being too tough on his budget requests, Huntsman joked, "Maybe I could just hold back on what I sell" and so temporarily deny the state some tax monies.

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Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com