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Show &uiev 'ike By Harry Marlowe Speedy action on income tax reduction spurred by Gov. J. Bracken Lee was the major consideration as Utah's 30th Legislature this week swung into in-to its second week of action. Indications were good that Gov. Lee and the state's taxpayers tax-payers would get the sought-for sought-for reduction, although there were some differences of opinion as to just how much of a cut the legislators would go for. Gov. Lee wants taxes cut as a first order of business, thereby there-by clearing the decks for a realistic appraisal of the state's anticipated revenue for the coming com-ing bienniumand also an equally equal-ly realistic view of how funds should be allocated. And the legislators have moved mov-ed with commendable promptness prompt-ness to get the tax slash proposals pro-posals into' the legislative mill. As the second week opened, no less than nine bills were in the hoppers asking income tax cuts through increased exemptions. exemp-tions. Six of the bills came from the governor, blueprinting his proposals. pro-posals. The Lee package, if adopted would cut some $3,000,. 000 from the income tax revenue. reve-nue. Three other bills, backed by the Utah Legislative Council, Coun-cil, want taxes cut only an estimated esti-mated $1,100,000 to $1,500,000. Main feature of the governor's tax slash proposal is to up exemptions ex-emptions from the present rate of $600 per person, $1200 per couple and $300 for dependents, to a $700 exemption in all three categories. Along with the increased exemptions are added proposals to bring Utah tax returns more in line with feredal returns, provide pro-vide for a short form which is based on net income and allows federal taxes to be deducted, and make the whole thing retroactive retro-active to include returns filed this year on 1952 income. I I The balance of the governor's bills take up the slack in the uniform school fund which will be left by the $3,000,000 income tax cut. Gov. Lee is asking an appropriation of $3,000,000 be made from sales tax revenue to the school fund for each of the 1952- 53, 1953-54, and 1954-55 fiscal years. Then, because the chief executive's execu-tive's tax reduction plans also call for elimination of state property pro-perty taxes, he wants to give $4,500,000 from sales tax funds to the school fund in both the 1953- 54 and 1954-55 fiscal years. The legislative council proposals pro-posals are more moderate in their tax decrease. They advocate advo-cate that all exemptions be placed at $600. which increases only the exemption for dependents. depen-dents. Equitable features of federal fed-eral tax laws are included, the present short form would be repealed, re-pealed, and the loss to' the uniform uni-form school fund would also come out of. sales tax surplus, should the council plan be adopted. adop-ted. Preliminary cloak room talk! has not indicated which proposals propos-als are likely to get the legislative legis-lative approval, or whether a compromise might be hammered out. One thing, though, appeared certain. The Republican majority major-ity (15-8 in the Senate and 39-21 in the House) are determined to j give the governor some sort of '. tax cuts. There were, however, some indications which might possibly ; presage developments when the bills come up for consideration. One of these was that in the ' House, some 25 Republican legislators leg-islators placed their name on the bills favored by Gov. Lee. Among them were the majority floor leader, Rep. Charles R. Peterson (R-Provo) and the majority ma-jority which. Rep. Clair R. Hopkins Hop-kins (R-Vernal). Only 6 more representatives . would have to be found to put the bill ovef. I In the Senate, the division of those favoring one or the other bill is not so clear. The Legislative Council tax bills appeared to have the early ! strength. There are six Republican Republi-can Senators who are members of the council and three Democrats. Demo-crats. However, not all signed the council tax bill. Five Repub- licans put their names on the I governor's proposals. One inter-I inter-I esting feature was the comment I by Sen. Marl D. Gibson (D-Price) i that "the governor's bill comes I a lot closer to the welfare commission com-mission estimates of the minimum mini-mum an individual can live on than ours does." 1 Gov. Lee also made one other request which the Legislative Council moved promptly ; to answer. This one was on the always al-ways hot issue of legislative reapportionment. re-apportionment. In his opening message. Gov. Lee said he hoped the legislature legisla-ture would meet its constitutional constitution-al mandate and solve the knotty problem. The next day, the council met and hammered together to-gether a compromise which the 13-man body felt they could agree on. Under the plan introduced under council sponsorship in the Senate, the House would be cut to 53 members and the Senate cut to 21. House membership now stands at 60 and the Senate at 23. Up until now, the big stumbling stumb-ling block to reapportionment has been the reluctance of the other 26 counties to allow control con-trol of the Legislature to be centered cen-tered in ' the three populous counties of Salt Lake, Weber, and Utah. As things now stand, the 26-county "rural" bloc has a majority of one in the Senate and two in the House. Under the Legislative Council Coun-cil plan, the urban county trio would have 11 senators, a majority ma-jority of one, but would have only 25 representatives in the house to 28 for the others, a minority of three. With the counties broken up into districts, with one senator from each district, a lot of the rural objections would be alleviated alle-viated and a better distribution of representatives offered the citizens of the three counties. Under the new plan, Sail Lake County would be cut from 19 to 15 members in the House of Representatives, Cache, Box Elder, Carbon and Sanpete would each lose one representative representa-tive and Davis County would gain one. All other counties would remain unchanged. The 21-man Senate would be reached by a redisricting in the southern and eastern sections of the state. Duchesne County, now in a senatorial district with Uintah, Uin-tah, would be added to' the district dis-trict now composed of Rich, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch and Daggett. Dagget County, along with Uintah, Emery, Grand and San Juan counties would make up a new district. Beaver county would be split away from Millard and added to Iron and Washington to form another district. Millard is added add-ed to Sanpete, making last change. This leaves Cache. Box Elder, Davis and Carbon counties coun-ties as single-county districts. Utah and Weber counties will be split to form two districts, and Salt Lake split into seven districts. Although there are apt to be several more reapportionment bills dropped into the hopper before the session ends, council members are hopeful this bill will meet most of the objections. |