House OKs $13 million property tax cut

With little debate, the Utah House voted Thursday afternoon to give Utahns a $13 million property tax cut.

It is the first of what is hoped will be several property tax cuts this session, although the tax cut in HB69 may mean only a few dollars for each Utah homeowner.

Still, with new tax revenue estimates coming next week — and the fear that they may see little, if any, improvement in state tax take in fiscal 2008-09 — HB69 may be the only significant tax cut given by legislators this year.

"This is Gov. Olene Walker's legacy," said Rep. Sheryl Allen, R-Bountiful, speaking about the new reading program the former governor demanded from lawmakers in 2004, funded in part by a new local school district property tax. It is that local tax that is repealed under HB69 — with the state making up those lost revenues.

Walker threatened to veto the whole state budget if lawmakers didn't provide $30 million for an early-grade elementary school special reading program. (It was a threat that ultimately changed the way that lawmakers adopt their yearly budgets to avoid such "blackmail" — as some lawmakers called her move — in the future.)

Angry GOP conservatives in the House and Senate stood against Walker. In the end, lawmakers agreed to pay for half of the new program (then around $15 million) and required school districts that wanted their share of that reading program funds to raise their own property taxes to pay for the rest of the new reading program.

When many Utah homeowners started screaming last November over higher property taxes — found in tax notices they were getting from county assessors — legislators started looking around for a way to cut property taxes.

More than a dozen bills, including several constitutional amendments, on property taxes were introduced in the 2008 Legislature.

And House Republicans voted in caucus in favor of a $100 million tax cut, with their Senate party colleagues saying they'd like to cut property taxes, too.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. did not include any tax cuts in this recommended budget. But he's softened a bit since, saying that he'd consider some property tax relief — and even mentioned Rep. John Dougall's HB69 as one way to do that.

After the vote, Dougall said that he expects the Senate to pass his bill, as it was an agreed-upon tax cut before the session started.