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Show Ho More Tokens Are Available After This Year Utah's colorful plastic tax tokens tok-ens which Utahns lose at the rate of nearly 5,000,000 per year will disappear during the next several months. Patrick Healy, Jr., state tax commission chairman, said this week that the commission has decided de-cided it will purchase no more tokens and estimates that during the next year the new ones now in circulation will gradually vanish. Mr. Healy said the commission decided to discontinue use of tokens tok-ens because (1) there is an increasing in-creasing tendency on the part of the public not to bother with them; (2) more and more retailers are using a "bracket system" to collect sales tax, and (3) increases in the cost of manufacturing and handling tokens have made their use uneconomical from the commission's com-mission's standpoint. The initial action to do away with the plastic disks will be taken this week by the commission, Mr. Healy said. Commission regulations now making it mandatory for retailers to have tokens on hand for collecting collect-ing sales tax will be amended. The new regulations, he said, will leave collected at least 2 of his gross sales. Mr. Healy said that as sales tax tokens disappear the commission expects pressure will increase to pass a regulation designating the amounts upon which sales taxes can be charged. The fact that the commission has the power to define a bracket system, he said, will prevent any unscrupulous retailer from taking unfair advantage of consumers by imposing a penny tax on such small items as a 5c purchase. This would amount to a 20 levy just 10 times the legal rate. I the choice of using tokens up to the individual retailer. When this action is taken, the commission expects many retail establishments to go over to using the bracket system of collecting sales tax exclusively. Although no regulations have been set up defining at what amount retailers should start collecting col-lecting taxes, the general bracket system in operation today collects lc on purchases from 25c to 74c Sand 2c on purchases between 75c and $1.24. This means that the purchaser of items of 25c exclusively is paying pay-ing a 4 sales tax just double the rate set up by law. But this "over-taxation" on 25c purchases is balanced out by "undertaxation" on purchases less than 36c or purchases pur-chases between 51c and 74c. In any event, the law requires the retailer re-tailer to turn over all sales tax |