Our Utah legislators are telling us that tax reform is necessary to address a large shift in our tax base from goods to services. A substantial change has occurred during the technological revolution of the past 20-30 years, but the current ratio of services to goods is unlikely to increase a substantial amount in the future — a majority of the shift to services has already occurred.
Utah’s legislators and governor say that a new law taxing services is needed to “keep Utah afloat.” However, our current tax structure, in an economy where services play a major role, produced a substantial tax surplus last year.