OCR Text |
Show Legislature Has Little Control Over Utah State Tax Revenues "Mjre than 83" or sutc revenues reven-ues collected lu Utah are "euniiai Iced" Ic-ed" for expenditure for bpec ial pur-xseii pur-xseii only," says a research report Just lelttt ed by Utah Foun.iution. "llib means that four-filths of the axis and fees collected by the state nil be sH'iit by various depu Uncut,-, Al.hout appropriation by the Lei.i-laluie. Lei.i-laluie. These suerlal funds are not at present subject to leubdaUve bu.i-ii-tary controls." The Utah Foundation survey. "Earmarking of State Revenue; in Utah." was made by the non-pro-lit tax organization for the Legislative Leg-islative Tax Study Committee In commenting, the research report re-port states: "The question arises us to whether the amount to be expended ex-pended for a function of state government gov-ernment should be determined by the Legislature on the basis of need for the service, rather than by the amount which a given tax happens to produce. "Although it tuny lie desirable to spend certain tax revenues only for the purpose for which they are levied, le-vied, both the Department of Finance Fin-ance and the Tax Study Committee Commit-tee have recommended that such expenditure should be regulated by basic budgets approved by the State Legislature." In explaining the extent of revenue re-venue earmarking In Utah, the report re-port said: "Of the $300 million collected col-lected from Utah taxpayers during Wie 12-year period, 1935 through 1946, only $57 million, or was available for general fund free revenue rev-enue requiring appropriation by the Stute Legislature as authority for Its expenditure. The remaining $243 million, or 81 was expendable because be-cause of constitutional or statutory earmarking at the discretion of some department or agency of the State government without specific legislative legis-lative appropriation or budgetary approval. In other words, for every ev-ery $1 million collected and made subject to expenditure as directed by the Legislature In Its appropriations appropria-tions for the state budget, $4 million mil-lion was collected and mude directly direct-ly available for expenditure by some state department or agency without the control of a legislatively-approved budget. "Some earmarked revenue sources show a direct relationship to the purpose for which they are to be expended." the report continued, while others show no relationship whatsoever. The bounty tax and IB and bangs disease tax, which are closely related to the purpose for which revenues are expended, are examples of the principal Justification Justifica-tion for earmarking: 'a special tax an a special group deriving a special spe-cial benefit,' Similarly, earmarking )f highway taxes for highway purposes pur-poses only is widely accepted on this basis. "An extreme contrast is the 4'"o tax on liquor sales which is earmarked ear-marked for the school lunch fund In other words, the greater the-liquor the-liquor consumption In Utah, the reater the revenues for financing the school lunch program. "In 1939," the report added, "when the Legislature enacted the statute earmarking the sales tax solely for welfare purposes, receipts from this source were $3,548,540. in 1946, re-cepts re-cepts were $8,363,727, more than 2-1 3 times as much as In 1939. As a result of economic factors un-forseeable un-forseeable In 1939 which were to multiply sales tax revenues beyond any level that could have been envisioned, en-visioned, the 1939 Legislature, in effect, upprovedi welfare expenditures expendi-tures for 1946 equal to 2-1 3 times the amount authorized for the year i the law was passed." |