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Show Income Tax in Utah is Moderate, Report This Week Indicates Despite the fact that Utah has one of the highest individual indivi-dual income taxes in the West, the overall direct tax burden for a typical family in Salt Lake City is moderate moder-ate when compared with other oth-er major cities in the Mountain Moun-tain States. This was pointed out in an analysis just completed by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization. According to the survey, a typical family of four persons per-sons owning a home valued at $25,000 and earning $10,-000 $10,-000 per year would pay approximately ap-proximately $788 in property, sales, and income taxes in Salt Lake City. This is less than fhe probable tax burden bur-den for such a family in Phoenix ($933), Tucson ($903) and Denver ($864), but -is somewhat above the overall tax load in Albuquerque ($667). Among the Pacific Coast cities included in the study, Portland ($876) and Sacramento Sacra-mento ($797) would have higher overall tax loads than Salt Lake City. On the other hand, lower tax totals for tills "typical" family would be registered in Sara Diego ($751), Los Angeles ($718). Oakland ($659),. Spokane ($613) and Seattle ($463). Foundation analysts point out that Utah imposes a higher high-er individual income tax than any other state in the 'West with the exception of Oregon. Oregon, however, does not levy a sales tax. With respect to the other two major taxes' affecting individuals in-dividuals (property tax and . sales tax),, the study notes that Salt Lake City's position posi-tion may be termed moderate. moder-ate. The property tax load in Salt Lake City js somewhat below that in most of the other major cities of the West, while the sales tax burden is1 about equal to the average of tJhe twelve Western West-ern cities included in the survey. The Governor submitted a budget to the 1969 Utah Legislature Leg-islature which included recommendations rec-ommendations for; raising the sales tax by one per cent and increasing- the required f local mill levy for schools by two mills ($2 per $1000 assessed as-sessed valuation). If this were done, it would increase the tax load for the "typical" $10,000 a year family by about $56 per year ($48 in sales tax and $8 in property taxes). This would still place Salt Lake City's overall tax burden (revised total of $844) slightly below that of Phoenix, Phoe-nix, Tucson and Denver. The total tax load, however, would be higher than any of the Pacific Coast cities included in-cluded in tihe study with the exception of Portland, Ore. Utah Foundation emphasized emphasiz-ed that the above comparisons compari-sons were based entirely on the three major taxes (property, (prop-erty, sales, and income'i paid by individuals and families. fam-ilies. Specifically excluded were taxes paid by business and industry as well as all special excise taxes. More than 50 per cent of the property pro-perty tax, for example, is borne by owners of commercial commer-cial and industrial property in Utah. : The Foundation report notes that Utah relies more on taxes from business and industry than most states. A 1967 Census of Governments report shows that the proportion pro-portion of the total tax base consisting of commercial and industrial property in Utah is more than one-third greater great-er than the average of thirty states reporting to a special 1967 Census of Governments survey. Only four of the thirty thir-ty states included in the Census Cen-sus of 'Governments survey reported higher proportion of commercial and industrial property in their tax base than is found in Utah. |