The Utah Legislature has proposed a dramatic tax overhaul in the form of House Bill 441). How does HB441 help Utah? We don’t know every way it will help but we do know one way in which it won’t — education funding.
Utah has a budget revenue surplus of about $1.3 billion this year. HB441 proposes lowering income taxes and taxing services instead. What isn’t being said is that education funding is tied constitutionally to our income taxes. Last year, the Legislature lowered income taxes from 5 percent to 4.95 percent, which reduced education funding by $55 million annually.