Utah is targeting tax deadbeats

Because of a critical state audit, the Utah State Tax Commission has done an about-face, changing dozens of its once-secret policies and/or methods in going after delinquent taxpayers.

And if the commission is as successful as Legislative Auditor General Wayne Welsh believes it can be in collecting bad tax debt, starting next year lawmakers could have an extra $135 million or more to spend on schools, roads or whatever.

That's not chump change.

If GOP legislative leaders actually do factor that into their yearly revenue estimates, nearly half the money needed to implement a new competency-based education program or pay for tuition tax credits or cover the cost of any number of other state programs could be generated.

"Yes, I think they should" put that money into next year's budget, said Welsh, who Friday released more information on a Tax Commission audit his office did earlier this year that had previously been kept secret.

House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, who pushed Welsh and the Tax Commission to release more information on the audit, said, "I don't know how much" of the possible $135 million extra "will be put in the budget. We'll be conservative and cautious. I can say it won't be anything like $135 million" until a delinquent collection track record is proven and leaders are comfortable with spending the money.

"Our auditors do great work, and this audit is another example of them saving millions of dollars for the state's citizens," said Stephens, whose Legislative Records Committee ordered the new information to be released Friday.

Leaders released the data after a hearing earlier this week on a Government Records Management and Access Act appeal brought by The Salt Lake Tribune, and joined by the Deseret Morning News, on Welsh's original audit of the Tax Commission. Finished some time ago but not released until September, nearly every page of the original 90-page audit had blacked out — or redacted — sections.

Welsh said such information couldn't be released because it would provide a "road map" to dishonest taxpayers to see how they could avoid paying taxes. Specifically, the redacted portions detailed how much a taxpayer had to owe before he was pursued, had liens placed on the property and so on.

Since the audit was finished, the commission has changed "many of their policies and methodologies" in collecting delinquent taxes, noted Welsh. And so now the redacted portions "are history about what the Tax Commission did before, not what it's doing now."