OCR Text |
Show Foundation Lists Tax Breakdown Owners of commercial and industrial in-dustrial property paid $34.8 million, or 57.4 of all property proper-ty taxes in Utah during 195ti. This was one of the findings of a study just released by Utah Foundation, the private, nonprofit non-profit tax research agency. According to the Foundation study, residential property owners own-ers paid $16.7 million, or 27.4, of the total property tax burden, and owners of agricultural property bore $4.8 million, or 7.9 of the property tax load. Motor vehicle owners paid $4.0 million in property taxes in 1956 (6.6 oi" the total amount charged), while $0.4 million (0.7) in property taxes were charged to owners of property prop-erty not otherwise classified. Altogether, a total of $60.7 million mil-lion in property taxes were charged in Utah last year. The Foundation report notes chat this is the first time that it has been possible to determine the proportion of taxes paid by the various economic groups in Utah, Heretofore, no distinction distinc-tion was made on the tax rolls between agricultural and industrial in-dustrial property in rural areas, nor between residential and business property in u r b a n areas. Thus, in the past, it was impossible to determine who paid the property tax in Utah. Foundation analysts point out j that the absence of information regarding the sourefcs of the property tax and its economic impact has been a- major obstacle ob-stacle in appraising the overall over-all equity of the Utah state and local tax structure. |