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Show Property Taxes to Raise This Year Says Foundation "Total property taxes charged by all units of Utah local government in 1975 will be $207,300,000. This is $26,209,860 or 14.5 percent more than it was last year. This is the largest increase in the State's history," said Jack Olson, of the Utah Taxpayers Association. $9.6 million of the total $26 million will be bourne by Salt Lake County taxpayers." Olson blamed the County Assessor and the 'arbitrary' 25 percent Jand value 'adjustment' for most of this year's Salt Lake County jump. UTA labeled the increase a $10 million taxpayer "rip-off" hidden under the smokescreen of equalization. The tax figures were revealed recently in the Association's annual comprehensive com-prehensive report of property tax levies and estimated collection for 1975. "The forty school districts will use $126 million, or 61 percent of the total $207.3 million charged. County government will take 41.7 million, or 20 percent, of the total. The 212 cities and towns will take $26.4 million, and special districts such as mosquito, library and cemetery will collect and spend $13 million:" claimed UTA analysts. Below is shown where the growth of the property tax has taken place since 1970: Perc. 1970 1975 Inc. Schools 97.7 126.1 29 Spec.Dist 6.7 13.0 94 Cities-Towns 20.4 26.4 29 Counties 29.1 41.7 43 Total 154.1 207.3 35 "All together there are levies for more than 212 cities and towns, 40 school districts, 29 counties and 139 special taxing districts. Salt Lake County alone has 44 different units of government that levy taxes on property owners." "The complexity and pyramiding of property taxes is like a three layer marble cake. That is what makes it difficult for the taxpayer to understand property taxes and react intelligently," in-telligently," said Jack Olson. For a summary of what happened this year, Utah reported that of the 40 school districts, 7 cut levies, 9 made no change, and 24 or 60 percent increased their levies. Davis district with 35.08 mills has the lowest school levy, and Provo with 53.73 mills is the highest. Millard district had the sharpest increase with a jump of 5.08 mills followed by San Juan which went up 3.47 mill,. "18 out of 29 counties jumped tax levies this year. 5 remained unchanged and 6 cut their tax rates. Cache County with 8.50 mills has the lowest rate. W asatch County has the highest levy with 22.37 mills. Wasatch also had the largest increase with 5.41 mills followed by Piute w ith 4.25 mills." "63 of the 212 cities and towns cut 1975 tax rates. 122 made no change, and 27 went up." "39 of the special districts cut 1975 property tax rates. 69 made no change and 8 increased in-creased their rates." |