Most Utahns would forgo tax cut

Utahns like the idea of a new dual-track state income tax system, a just-completed Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows.

But while nearly 60 percent like the new tax plan, if given the option of cutting income taxes by $70 million or spending that amount on public education, a clear majority want the money spent on schools, not tax cuts, pollster Dan Jones & Associates found in a survey finished Friday.

While 58 percent of Utahns would rather spend extra money on schools rather than get a $48 income tax cut this year, they don't have that option. The GOP-dominated Legislature decided last February to give a $70 million income tax cut. What needs to be decided now is exactly how to do that.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. issued the long-awaited special legislative session call Friday. Utah's 104 part-time legislators will gather Tuesday at the Capitol Complex to consider Huntsman's dual-track income tax system, which includes a $70 million tax cut over two years.

Legislators will also vote on whether to allow voters to raise their own sales taxes by a quarter cent. The money would go to fund new roads, TRAX and commuter rail lines.

In a poll published Saturday in the Morning News, Jones found that most Utahns favor a sales tax hike for transportation needs, favor increasing sales taxes rather than property taxes for such projects and favor a county-by-county vote on whether to raise taxes for transportation.

The income tax questions reflect a more mixed view by residents, Jones found.

Over the years, public opinion surveys have consistently shown Utahns want more money put into public education.

When legislators have given relatively small tax cuts in the past, residents have often said they would rather the money go to schools.

Democratic legislators held a press conference last week to say that while there may be some good aspects to Huntsman's income tax reforms this year — specifically, the indexing of the current progressive tax system to inflation — overall, they don't think such tax cuts should be given in a special session or at this time.

But Huntsman has been arguing for two years that Utah's personal income tax system needs to be reworked.

And since it was made clear by House Republicans last general session that in any "reform" there could be no segment of taxpayers who would have to pay more, an overall income tax cut would have to come with any reform.

GOP legislative leaders say they have the necessary votes Tuesday to pass Huntsman's new dual-track income tax system. And a majority of residents like the new tax plan.