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Show THE TAX BURDEN IN RELATION TO UTAH'S ECONOMY COMPARISON OF TAXES AND PROPERTY VALUE The total asspssed valuation of Utah in 1951 reported by the State Tax Commission Com-mission wai $903 million. Utah's share of Federal, stale, and local taxes for the four years 1918, 1919, 1950, and 1951 amounted to $1,043 million, or $140 million more than the State's assessed valuation for 1951. Total taxes In 1951 equaled one-third of the assessed valuation valua-tion for the entire State. Utah laws provide that property in Utah should be assessed at 401 of its reasonable fair cash value. However, a survey made in 1951 indicated that firoperty is actually assessed more near-y near-y at 201 of current market value. If it is assumed that assessed values equal approximately 20 of the actual value of property, the entire accumulated taxable tax-able wealth of Utah would pay the taxes imposed by Federal, state, and local governments in Utah for about 15 years at 1951 rates. k SHIFT IN TAXES At first glance, it would appear that responsibility for the increasing proportion propor-tion of wealth and income required for taxes lies with the Federal Government. However this underemphasizes the fact that in recent years, tnere has been a decided tendency to shift the responsi- bility for financing certain functions to the higher levels of government. The state and Federal governments have assumed as-sumed major role in many functions formerly performed mainly or entirely by local governments,, such as welfare activities and road building and maintenance. main-tenance. A concurrent significant trend has been the increase in Federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments and state grants to local governments. During Dur-ing fiscal 1951, the state of Utah received re-ceived Federal grants-in-aid totaling $13.9 million, an increase of 177 over fiscal 1940 and 9,6003 (97 times) over fiscal 1930. In 1951, Federal grants represented 17.81 of the total Utah state revenue. These data include only Federal grants channeled through the state treasurer reported by the State Finance Fi-nance Commission, and exclude all Federal Fed-eral payemnts for projects carried out directly by the Federal Government in Utah. The increased centralization of governmental gov-ernmental functions and the rapid rise in Federal and state subventions are two reasons for the relatively smaller increases in local and state taxes compared com-pared with the much greater increase in Federal taxes. Of course, the major factor for the relatively greater increases in Federal taxes is the tremendous expansion ex-pansion of Federal expenditures in recent re-cent years for war, defense, and foreign aid, as well as Increases In domestic non-defense outlays. Federal taxes in 1029 accounted for about 273 of the total tax burden in Utah. In 1940. Federal taxes represented repre-sented 323 of the total tax burden. By 1951, Federal taxes had risen to 683 of all taxes paid by Utahns. |
