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Show Average family's taxes pay ony half cost of benefits ip and local taxes paid by a typical S v in Utah cover only about half the " I state and local government ser-i1 ser-i1 urnished to the family, according n mh Foundation, the private, non-"Sl non-"Sl research organization. f1 , any the other half of the cost is bv taxes paid by the employer 'rting members of the family," the i Lion notes in a Research Brief fS this week. "If the employer not pay taxes-as, for example, the ft al government does not-then half cost of benefits received by " uyees and their families must be MP by the rest of the community, individual taxpayers and business industry." , urge influx of Federal government wees into Utah thus would impose ere financial strain on state and government units, the Foundation k i out However, if a large number !( new people were brought into the L by establishment of a new in-fstry in-fstry or expansion of an existing Utah Jn the situation would be different, dif-ferent, due to the taxes paid by jjployers. In arriving at these conclusions, Utah Foundation examined the state and U taxes paid and the state and local Lmment provided benefits received atypical family of four living in Salt Lcityin 1980. The "typical" family ,as assumed to have an annual income . 520,000 and to own a house with a jarke't value of $60,000 assessed value 1376 according to average 1980 (ssesment ratios in Salt Lake City. The family is also assumed to own a two ear old car with market value of $4,000 assessed value $800 which is driven HMO miles during the course of the mjt, at an average of 15 miles per don of gasoline. Property taxes on tose and car are figured at the 68.91 mill rate that applied to most of Salt Lake City in 1980. Benefits provided to the family are calculated by taking total expenditures of the state, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake School District and subtracting from them all federal money and non-tax revenues The net sums are calculated on a per capita basis, using 1980 census figures and multiplyed by four to obtain the family's share of benefits. School benefits are figured in this way on the theory that school services benefit the community in general. If school benefits were calculated on the basis of money spent per pupil, and pro-rated for the family's two school age children, the benefits would be more than double those used in the comparison com-parison $4,632 compared to $1,327. State and local taxes for a Salt Lake City family as described would have totaled $2,082 in 1980, while state and local benefits received would have been $4,120. Taxes paid directly by the family fami-ly would cover just over half the cost of benefits received Comparable studies done by Utah Foundation in 1955, 1960 and 1968 showed show-ed approximately the same proportion of taxes paid to cost of benefits. "It should be kept in mind that all of this discussion of tax benefit ratios has been based on the assumption that government services would be furnished furnish-ed through existing facilities and organizational structure," the foundation founda-tion notes. "If an influx of new government govern-ment exployees were sufficiently large to require significant expansion of staffs and of physical facilities, the impact im-pact on the local community would be much greater. The impact on the state and on local communities could be enormous." |
