What they couldn't agree on before adjourning in March was what form the income tax cut should take. Huntsman wanted the top tax rate lowered from 7 percent to about 5 percent, and most deductions eliminated to create what he termed a "fairer, flatter" tax.

The Senate was ready to go along with that plan, but the House stalled the tax cut in the final minutes of the session. Opponents complained the plan was too complicated and that they hadn't had enough time to consider it.

So the governor said he'd wait until May to call lawmakers back into special session to vote on the plan.

Wednesday, Huntsman said he remained committed to tax reform. "It is critically needed on the income side, to make our state more competitive and to secure the base for longer-term funding for public education," he said.

The $70 million set aside for the tax cut, the governor said, "remains on the table" for that purpose.

Just how the plan ended up actually costing about $105 million — $35 million above the impact on state budget that was calculated by the Legislature's fiscal analyst's office — is not entirely clear.

According to the head of the fiscal analyst's office, John Massey, the problem was in data supplied by the Utah State Tax Commission. "It's frustrating," Massey said of the error in the fiscal note. "But we sign it, and we take responsibility for it."

He said his office is looking at ways to prevent similar problems in the future.

Charlie Roberts, tax commission spokesman, said the commission is "in the process of getting together, gathering information and evaluating the situation."

The governor and others said the error, discovered within the past week, happened because the calculations did not take into account the credit that Utahns receive for taxes they pay to other states for income earned there.

Huntsman said the "brain trust" of experts he tapped to come up with the plan also relied on those same, apparently faulty, numbers. The size of the proposed plan was changed a number of times throughout the session.

The governor declined to say whether any other issues would require a special session of the Legislature. He has said, however, that there are some technical corrections that need to be made to the budget before July 1.

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