Can legislators sustain their tax-cutting truce?

Are you looking forward to a state tax cut this year?

One is coming, whether you want it or not.

Of course, politics will play the defining role in which tax, or taxes, are cut and by how much by lawmakers and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Last year saw the Utah House Republicans and Huntsman basically lining up against the Senate Republicans over taxes. Huntsman and House members wanted to trim the sales tax from food. Republican senators didn't.

There were also breakdowns over changing the personal income tax system.

Much tension and frustration ensued.

Chastened a bit (and perhaps worrying about his slim 20-vote victory in November's election), House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy, vows things will be more amicable this session.

But then the House GOP caucus, in a daylong closed caucus, voted to give a $300 million tax cut.

Huntsman only recommended a $100 million tax cut in his 2007-08 budget.

And in typical manner, Senate Republicans couldn't decide how large a tax cut to give this year — when legislators find themselves with $1.6 billion in one-time and ongoing tax revenues over this year and next.

GOP senators will take the unprecedented measure of meeting on a weekend, gathering this Saturday at a local hotel in another closed caucus to discuss budget and tax cuts.

Curtis says he and other House GOP leaders met privately with their Senate counterparts over the Christmas holidays and offered a tax-cutting truce — let's not fight over whether we have an income tax cut or food sales tax cut, let's just cut the relatively small state-mandated property tax that goes to public education.

And so they made peace. Well, peace for a time.

You see, Huntsman wants to further reduce his flat-rate income tax, from 5.35 percent to 5 percent. He doesn't at all like the idea of giving a property tax cut — although he's keeping his rhetoric low at the present time.

The property tax cut has far-reaching effects. The property tax, while much disliked, in reality is not very high in Utah — especially when compared to property taxes on the East and West coasts.

And the property tax is the most stable of taxes, going up only when local taxing entities — school districts, local governments and special improvement districts — go through the truth-in-taxation public hearing process to raise the tax.