Two ideas formulated by Utah's current and preceding governors — extending the sales tax to service industries and repealing the corporate income tax — are not getting much traction, committee members say. Both could already be dead in the tax reform effort.

Former Gov. Olene Walker recommended moving the sales tax into some service areas — now not taxed — like health care services, attorney bills and the like.

Huntsman, too, in various statements about tax reform has said that with Utah's changing economy, no longer can a large sector of economic activity remain untaxed.

But Harper doesn't believe there is the political will among the 104 part-time legislators to place the sales tax on hospital and doctor bills.

Health care, legal and accounting bills, along with real estate transactions, make up about 80 percent of the current untaxed service sector, said Harper.

Staying out of taxing those areas means no real overhaul of the sales tax base can be accomplished, Harper believes, at least in the current reform effort.

Instead, the committee may well work aggressively "around the edges" to make the current sales tax more fair.

For example, currently if you get your dog groomed you pay sales tax on that service. But you don't pay a sales tax on the bill from your veterinarian. Coin-operated laundries aren't taxed, but your dry cleaning bill is, Harper said.

"There are some obvious inequities in how the sales tax is applied, and we'll try to deal with some of those."

Both Walker and Huntsman have suggested that the current 5 percent corporate income tax be repealed, in part because it is historically an unstable tax and in part to encourage economic development.

But Harper and others on the task force say to do that would give "big tax breaks" to large industries not located in Utah but which are doing some business here. Since the Utah Constitution requires that all personal and corporate income taxes go to higher and public education, that would be giving a tax break to non-Utahns while possibly harming local school funding, not a smart political move.

Instead, said Harper, it's better to do what the Utah Taxpayers Association and other task force members favor: Adopt a new formula in figuring state corporate income taxes that gives a tax break — and thus an economic development incentive — to Utah-based firms.

Bramble says struggling or new businesses could be aided by exempting from taxation the first $500,000 a business makes in a year.

No tax hikes

Harper, Bramble and others say the committee's overall goal is to not burden groups of taxpayers with significantly higher taxes while giving other groups big tax breaks.

"We'll try to have revenue neutrality within tax areas — within the sales and income taxes — and within classes of taxpayers," said Harper.