Because health care makes up such a large part of the service-based economy, tax experts have said hospital, doctor and dentist bills need to be taxed for the base to be truly broadened.

But Jones found in a poll of 413 adults conducted May 31-June 2 that placing state and local sales taxes on services is not popular. Fifty-nine percent definitely or probably oppose doing so.

A huge 90 percent of those surveyed oppose placing the sales tax on health-care services. And Utahns still want to take the sales tax off of unprepared food — 68 percent strongly or somewhat favor cutting the food tax; only 27 percent oppose it, the survey found.

Legislators are seeking specific, hard recommendations on how Utah taxes should be changed, but the task force received little of that Wednesday. Representatives from the Utah Foundation, a research group; the Utah League of Cities and Towns; the Utah Association of Counties; and the Utah Taxpayers Association, a business-funded group, talked a lot Wednesday about what taxes should or shouldn't do but offered little in the way of concrete suggestions.

"You've seen death by numbers and jargon" in the presentations, said Paul Mero, president of the Sutherland Institute, a pro-family think tank. "It's all been philosophy. I'm brain dead" just listening to three hours of testimony, he said.

Mero then went on to philosophize about how the "center point" of any state tax plan should be to strengthen and uphold the family. Revenues, simplicity and a stable society then naturally flows, Mero said.

"All other competing institutions — the individual, the state, the corporation and the church — are benefited" with strong, secure families. "The family tide lifts all ships."

All too often, tax policy is set to aid one of the other competing institutions; too much attention paid to dysfunctional families and individuals who demand state aid or assistance, he said.

The state "values disvalues over functions. It sees broken homes, never good ones. Public services serve dysfunctional families, and we get a cycle of dependency."

Mero did have some recommendations: Change the Utah Constitution, untying personal and corporate income taxes from supporting public education; expand the sales tax to services and tie it to education funding. "Then you can safely abolish the corporate income tax" without having education advocates crying foul, he added.

Other task force subcommittees took steps toward amending the constitution to facilitate tax reform. Property tax subcommittee members agreed to forward a proposed amendment that would allow the Legislature to decide which personal property — from office furniture to power plants — could be taxed.