Comments about ‘Sen. Adams bill would reduce property tax, raise sales tax’

Sounds to me like a reasonable plan, however, I do not trust a taxing entity to keep the promises that are made.

I see them implementing this "consumption" tax on us, then turning around a taxing us on our property when the sales tax income does not meet their budget requirements.

Unless it written somewhere in the law that the School Districts will have to make due with what they get, that they can not place taxes on our property, I would say no to this whole idea.

Shifting that to sales tax makes the sales tax even more regressive and demands more of those who have less to give anyway.

Just another way to punish someone for being poor and trying to live within their means.

Except I can claim my property taxes on my federal income taxes - I cannot claim sales taxes there....

So how much is the real savings?

@ itsjustme: You are exactly right - as a matter of fact, that is why we have a federal income tax.

The federal income tax was created to replace the tax income lost from sales of alcohol during prohibition. Once prohibition was repealed, the income tax was supposed to be repealed also - we all know how well that happened!

Guaranteed taxes?????? Of all the gall for education to openly admit. No tax or taxation should be guaranteed, I don't care what its for. If this is the attitude for the use of property tax then its time to repeal all property tax on homeowners and farmers and have a single tax, sales tax. It's the tax everyone pays except the poor on welfare. They are tax exempt on all food.

Repealing property tax will put the tax burden where it belongs, on the large families and those with enough expendable income to buy goods.

I'm sick and tired or property taxes and taxation without representation. And property taxes are without representation.

One of the issues not brought up by the article is how much of the school revenue burden is not shared by renters, who do not pay property taxes.

I read an article by Jack Anderson years ago about this, and his proposal was that all schools derive their revenue solely from tuition. People with kids would pay, people with no kids would not pay. The people paying tuition would have the say in how the money was spent, people not paying tuition would have no say. Let me elaborate.

When I was in public high school, every year the school board proposed some new spending, and every year the local retirement community would bus all the residents to the meeting to vote it down. So we had things like plate glass falling out of windows into the gym because there wasn't money for renovations.

Sure, there would have to be accommodations for underprivileged families, and there would probably have to be some sharing of funds across entire school boards or regions, so poorer areas would have the same access to materials/resources as those in richer areas. But it does solve some problems.

i don't have kids in school anymore, and i pay property taxes, and i still think this is a bad idea.

we've been fighting it out for several years now to eliminate sales taxes on food, and i say we continue down that road.

@ My2Cents: School taxes are not "taxation without representation" - the Utah State Legislature does represent you.

@ Paul in MD: Renters pay rent to the owners of the property - who pay property taxes on said property. It may be indirect, but renters do pay property taxes.

My2cents wrote - "I'm sick and tired or property taxes and taxation without representation. And property taxes are without representation."

What are you talking about? Do you vote for your school board members? Do you have the opportunity to attend school board meetings? Especially their Truth in Taxation meetings? Do you have the opportunity to attend your county's meetings regarding taxation? I think your pants are on fire.

Really bad idea. Learn from CA and it's Prop 13. Once CA had one of the best school systems in the country, but no more.
Society benefits from good schools. Today's well-educated child will be your Dr., nurse, Congress member, pilot, etc. tomorrow. The success or failure of this country is directly tied to the quality of education which makes it even more tragic that our schools are suffering in these tough economic times.

in salt lake county our sale tax is higher than all. they bult the salt pallace on our backs and the average person get nothing out of the salt pallace. its for the rich again. anty fixed income people would lose the savings on food. sales tax never comes off. the flood tax on beer is still there. its just like the tax breaks we save 800 the rich save millions

"But in lean years, people tend to spend less while shopping, which can lead to revenue shortfalls."

That is the main drawback to the proposal.

I am not sure how this is "equalizing" tax revenue. If District A is getting $1 from property tax and District B is getting $10 from property tax, under this proposal District A would get 60 cents from property tax and 40 cents from sales tax and District B would get $6 from property tax and $4 from sales tax. So District A still has $1 and District B still has $10. What gets "equalized"? This is just a shift from property tax to sales tax but doesn't really do anything to change per pupil funding. So what's the point?

In my opinion this is a bad idea. This is just another shift of the tax burden from businesses to the res t of us. Nowhere is this article did they discuss why this is a good idea for the little guy. What this does is shift the tax from property tax to sale tax. Some people may pay less overall, but I will bet you that most people will pay more in taxes under this plan.

Bottom line, if business pays less, someone will have to pay more in order to have the same amount of revenue. Guess who gets to pay more.

Draper@9:15 is right on. This is a tax cut for businesses and a increase on individuals. Even if you are a homeowner and you see a decrease of a few hundred dollars off of your property tax you will pay it right back and more in sales tax.

The oft repeated mantra is that the property tax is the most hated, that is because it is paid all at once. You see the bill. If you had to pay your yearly sales tax all at once, you probably would be shocked at the amount.

This is not a good approach, is not "equalization", it is very regressive, and in the long run it will hurt public education which is the goal of a group of our legislators.