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Show and Missouri and Washington, 42 per cent. The sales tax was adopted in Utah in 1933 to meet a crises in public finances arising from heavy property tax delinquency which accompanied the depression depres-sion years. Until 1939, sales tax revenues were divided by the Utah Legi- slature among schools, the State i Genera1 F.:nd, and public releif and welfare. The 1939, 1941, and 1943 Legislatures earmarked all sales tax revenues for welfare purposes: The 1945 and 1947 Legislatures brought the sales tax back under legislative control, con-trol, again dividing the revenues among the State General Fund, State Building Fund, and Welfare. Wel-fare. Part of the sales tax placed tax in theGeneral Fund wes appropriated ap-propriated to the schools by the 1945. Legislature. Out of the total of $85 million that the sales tax has produced, $59.2 million has gone directly to welfare assistance and administration, admini-stration, $9.2 million to the General Fund, $3.6 million to welfare institutions, $7000,000 to the Health Department, $4.2 million to state building funds, $1.4 million to public schools (not counting General Fund appropriations ap-propriations to the schools made possible by sales tax revenue), and $1.3 million to the State Tax Commission for costs of collecting the tax. The remaining $5.4 million is included in the present balance of the Emergency Emer-gency Relief Reserve Fund. In ten of the twenty-three which levy a sales tax, the entire en-tire revenue is placed in the general fund of the state. Only three states, Colorado, Oklahoma and Utah, earmarked a major portion of sales tax revenues for welfare purposes, and four other states earmark a smaller part of the sales tax for welfare. Sales taxes are also earmarked in part for school purposes, county aids, property tax re- I duction, and other purposes by a few of the states. Elimination of sales tax tokens is one of the proposals under study by the Utah Legislative Council. Why the sales tax was adopted in Utah, and what has become of the $85,000,000 in sales and use taxes collected since enactment enact-ment ot the tax in 1933 are detailed de-tailed in a report released today by Utah Foundation, the nonprofit non-profit tux research organization: The report chronicles the history of the sales tax from the time it was enacted in 1933 as an "Emergency Revenue Act" with a tax rate of three-fourths of one per cent, until the fiscal year just closed when sales tax revenues reached the all-time high of $12,639,724. This was $1,483,967 or 13 per cent more than In the fiscal year 1947. Sales tax collections in 1934, the first year of the 2 per cent tax, totaled $1,708,955, rising to a pre-war peak of $4,514,244 in 1941. For the fiscal year 1947, the sales and use tax produced 28 per cent of total Utah State tax revenues. Utah derives a smaller percentage of total state taxes from the sales and use tax than do sixteen of the twenty- two other states which have a state tax. West Virginia gets 47 per cent of total state taxes from the sales tax. Michigan, 45 per cent, |
