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Show Itff Battle Creek ';- Well sir, it's open season again However, this time it isn't the birds, the bucks and the fishies. It's poor old Joe Doakes and others oth-ers of his common ilk. The Legislature is in full cry once more. And despite all else, there's one thing of which we may all be dead sure: Taxes will be raised as usual. Prior to last November's election elec-tion much was said by candidates candi-dates for Utah's law-making huddle in favor of "holding the line on increased taxation." In fact in his "State of the State Message," Governor Clyde told the legislators to trim expenditures expen-ditures to fit revenues and leave tax rates alone for a change. Before the 1961 Legislature was two weeks old a couple of proposals have been made to take another s'zeable bite out of the old and bedeviled family pocket-book. pocket-book. M One is to'hike the geneial sales tax from two to two and one-half one-half per cent for all Utah residents, resi-dents, except those now paying the two and on.e-half. These favored fa-vored few would have the opportunity oppor-tunity of paying 3 cents on the dollar. The other proposal and this one is a dilly is to charge everyone, ev-eryone, who makes a Utah income in-come tax return, a filing fee of $10.00. This means that each year we would be taxed another $10.00 for the privilege of filing a Utah tax return. Nobody is going to suffer a nervous breakdown trying to figure fig-ure out just who is going to bear the brunt of either or both of these tax-raising proposals, if they are enacted into law. That's right, it's those in the lower income in-come bracket. Take the sales tax for instance. Whom does this hit the hardest? Is it the family man, who spends every dollar he oan scrape up to feed and clothe his family, or is it the rich man who spends only a fraction of his income for food, clothing, transportation and other oth-er living necessities? Many Utahns with low incomes and large families pay little or no Utah income tax, and rightly so. If the $10.00 filing fee goes into effect every one of these will be whacked a ten buck bill once annually, None of the legislators to date have favored raising the State property tax. And they are showing show-ing good judgment. Taxes on homos, automobiles and other non-income producing property are plenty high as it is. In the humble opinion of this column, the fairest tax ever conceived con-ceived by the politicians is the income tax, with its exemptions to help the man of small means and large family. It taxes only those able to pay and in proportion pro-portion to their income, after exemptions. ex-emptions. What could be more fair? Perhaps the state does need more revenue for schools and other public benefits. If so, the most reasonable way to secure it is to raise the income tax. "Lay off the little man," say I, "he has about had it." So long 'til Thursday. |