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Show Foundation analysis observe that "Utah ranks first among all 48 states in the percent of personal income spent for education." edu-cation." Total educational expenditures ex-penditures (local schools, higher education, and other) was equal to 7.59 per cent of personal income in-come earned by Utahns last year. This percentage is nearly near-ly 80 percent higher than the relative educational expenditure for the entire nation. The Utah Foundation study points out that "the relatively greater expenditures for education educa-tion in Utah are due primarily to the high proportion of the population enrolled in the public pub-lic schools and colleges, the relatively re-latively low personal income status, and the emphasis placed on education by the citizenry of the State." Utah Ranks 10th In State, Local Tax Burden Utah ranks 10th among the 48 states in its relative state and local tax burden. This was the conclusion reached by Utah Foundation, the private, nonprofit non-profit tax research organization. organiza-tion. According to the Foundation estimates, 10.54 percent of all personal income earned by Utahn's last year went for state and local taxes. This figure compares with 8.75 per cent for the nation as a whole. The study notes that the relative rela-tive tax burdens in all of the eleven Western States are higher high-er than the average for the entire en-tire nation. For all eleven Western States, state and local taxes amounted to 9.94 percent of total personal income. The corresponding figure for the 8 Mountain States was 10.33 per cent. Principal reason for the higher high-er state and local tax burden in Utah and the other Western States, according to the Utah Foundation report, is the relatively rela-tively greater emphasis placed on public education in the West. Five (Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Ari-zona, Montana and Wyoming) of the ten states in the nation making the greatest relative effort ef-fort to support public education educa-tion were Mountain States. Two of the other Mountain States, (Idaho and Colorado) were ranked 11th and 14th, respectively, respec-tively, in relative effort. The report states that total expenditures for education as a percent of personal income payments pay-ments was 6.10 percent in the Mountain States and 5.11 percent per-cent in the eleven Western States last year. Throughout the United States total educational educa-tional expenditures were equal to 4.25 percent of personal income. |