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Show Saturday. January 22, 2000 7fte Park Record A-13 start tobacco talks Leadars Legislators reviewing plans for expected $900 million; law firms clamoring for a share SALT LAKE CITY AP) The debate about how to spend Utah's tobacco money began in earnest Tuesday with a proposal to use some of the settlement proceeds to replace a sick tax" on hospital bills. Utah's share of the national tobacco settlement could total $986 million during the next 25 years, and lawmakers expect by April to have $27 million on hand. Dozens of proposals are competing com-peting at the Capitol for spending the windfall. One proposal taken up Tuesday at the Senate Human Services Committee would split the mony four ays. Backed by health and education educa-tion groups. Sen. Steven Poulton, R-Salt Lake City, introduced a bill to use the settlement to eliminate elim-inate the sick tax. fund anti-smoking anti-smoking campaigns, help support the Huntsman Cancer Institute and put any leftover funds in Utah's school trust fund. The Legislature voted last year to repeal the sick tax. which is added to hospital bills, but that action was vetoed by Gov. Mike Leavitt as too hasty. The tax raises $5.5 million a year and funds health insurance for 32,000 children of poor families, fami-lies, s Senate Majority Leader Lyle Hillyard. R-Logan, said lawmakers lawmak-ers remain determined to kill the tax. Health advocates, said they supported any allocation of tobacco money for anti-smoking programs. -We've been fighting an uphill battle for years," said Cathy Walser, who runs youth smoking prevention programs for the Weber-Morgan Health Department. "This bill would get us a little closer to what we need." Poiiltons bill would allocate the first $5.5 million in annual tobacco proceeds to supporting the child health-insurance program. pro-gram. The next S10.5 million would go to anti-smoking programs. pro-grams. Third in line is the Huntsman Cancer Institute for $5 million. Any money remaining each year would then go into the state s school trust fund, a constitutionally consti-tutionally protected lock-box now worth $350 million. Only some of the interest and dividends divi-dends earned by the fund are spent each year on public educa tion. Leavitt also . ha$i proposed replacing the sick tax with proceeds pro-ceeds from the tobacco settlement. settle-ment. But lawmakers donl know for certain how much money they'll have to spend, now or during the next 25 years. Utah is battling two law firms claiming 25 percent of Utah's settlement, set-tlement, potentially nearly $250 million, as a contingency fee. In December, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ordered 25 percent of Utah's money held in escrow until he decides whether any fee should be paid to the Salt Lake City firm Giauque Crocket Bendinger & Peterson and South Carolina-based Ness Motley Loadhotd Richardson & Poole, Attorney General Jan Graham says the law firms agreed to take their fee separately separate-ly from tobacco companies, but the firms rejected an $11 million settlement offer and filed a lien on Utah's money. A hearing is pending in federal court on the dispute. Utah's total share could shrink further with declining cigarette sales in Utah. The settlement reduces Utah's share by one percent per-cent for every one percent decline in cigarette sales. Hilly ard said cigarette tax revenues rev-enues already are shrinking in Casual, Upscale California Cuisine Utah DABC Licensee Open Tuesday thrbui Saturday starting at ?p.m. 653-2267 600 N. Sage wood Dr. (Kimball Junction - Next to WasKington Mutual) iiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmiiiiiiiimirr Internet tax could replace food levy I SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Gov. Mike Leavitt signed an executive order Tuesday directing direct-ing the Utah Tax Review Commission to study a simplified way of imposing the sales tax on Internet and catalogue purchases. purchas-es. "The existing tax system is a mess. It's just not compatible with the 21st Century." said Leavitt. whose advocacy of taxing tax-ing electronic commerce has drawn some political criticism. Leavitt said he is only in favor of imposing an evenhanded sales tax for brick-and-mortar retailers and Internet companies alike. Leavitt said he would use newfound new-found sales-tax revenue from "remote" sales via the Internet, mail-order catalogues or TV shopping channels to phase out Utah's sales tax on store-bought food, t Utah is one of onlv 12 states that taxes essential food. Leavitt. chairman of the National Governors Association, has been leading the charge for a federal simplification of thousands thou-sands of sales tax rates and exemptions across the country, a problem he says is so complex it is unlikely to be solved for years to come. "No one likes taxes. I hate taxes just like the next guy," Leavitt said. "But if you're going to have them, at the very least they ought to be fair." State officials can only guess how much sales tax they lose to remote purchases, with estimates ranging from $30 million to $100 million. The sales tax on food products brings in $140 million a year to state and local governments. ,The Tax Review Commission, headed ,by Brigham Young University Professor Gary Cornia. already is weighing Internet tax solutions. One proposal would establish a single sales tax rate for all of Utah. That plan would create a statewide sales tax of 6-35 percent. per-cent. The sales tax on all goods in Utah ranges from 5 25 percent to 6.35 percent, depending on the county. The plan would mean a tax hike for many Utah consumers. Money from remote sales would be collected by the state and distributed to local jurisdictions jurisdic-tions based on current formulas. Another proposal, from Sen. Lyle Hillyard. R-Logan. would establish one rate for remote sales without changing the other rates. Leavitt conceded that only a federal solution to collect taxes on remote transactions could fully solve the problem. Utah legislators advance stalker bill House committee approves a bill that would close a legal loophole for stalkers SALT LAKE CITY (AP) A loophole in Utah law makes it impossible for a victim to get a restraining order against a stalker stalk-er if the two did not live together first. On Tuesday, a House committee commit-tee gave its approval to a bill by Rep. Law anna Shurtliff. D-Weber, D-Weber, that would close that hole. Shurtliff says the bill appears to have broad support and expects a smooth road toward approval. But the bill wont become. law soon enough for Michelle Reilly. Last year Reilly was harassed by an ex-boyfriend. Michael VanGerven. VanGerven began making threatening phone calls, which soon developed into death threats. Then, on Jan. 22. 1999, VanGerven broke into her par ents' Cottonwood Heights home. Michelle Reilly escaped out the back door, but VanGerven took her mother, Renee. and father, John, hostage. He shot them both in the back of the head before escaping. John Reilly was killed instantly. The other bullet ricocheted rico-cheted off Renee Reilly skull, shattering her jaw but sparing her life. VanGerven shot and killed himself the next day. "There was no sign of him being unstable, but when he called and threatened my life I took it very seriously and it was hard for me that nobody else did." said Reilly after Tuesday's hearing. Reilly had gone to police seeking seek-ing help and was told all she could pursue was a claim of telephone harassment. "Because she had not cohabi-tated cohabi-tated with her boyfriend, she could not get a protective order." said Shurtliff. "A life could have been saved if this law had been in place." Shurtliff said she began work on the bill two years ago. Last year it passed both chambers of the Legislature, but House lawmakers didn't make the bill a funding priority pri-ority and it died because of its $102,000 price tag This year, Shurtliff included a $75 fee to file for a protective order, dropping the cost to $51. (XX). The House Judiciary-Committee Judiciary-Committee gave its unanimous approval to the bill, which will move to the full House for consideration. consid-eration. Meantime, Renee Reilly still is undergoing reconstructive surgery and the family is dealing with the trauma of the event, said Michelle Reilly. "We're slowly eetting it back together." she said. 'nasi a ii it i o a i) n I u j (I l IW (ilktxm MitOf Mid u he Seafood Buffet at Snow Park along with chilled shcilfi sh and hot s Lodge is overflowing with fresh seafood appetizers. And our dessert seafood from around the world. 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