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7/15/2019
Utah tax reform: Create a crisis and sell it to the Public
Utah tax reform: Create a crisis and sell it to the public
Ronald Mortensen, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, CitizensForTaxFairness.org
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7/8/2019
Talking Points - Tax Reform
Talking Points Tax Reform Task Force Meeting – Layton 7-8-19 Ronald Mortensen, CitizensForTaxFairness.org Utah’s Republican go..
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5/14/2019
Analysis: Why did Utah Republicans suffer election losses in 2018?
Ronald Mortensen,
Ph.D.
May 14, 2019
Based on the campaigns run for Republican
Party leadership and State Central Committee posi..
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5/7/2019
Analysis: Who was the major driving force behind the sales tax on services initiative?
Ronald Mortensen,
Ph.D.
May 7, 2019
Question:
Who was the major driving force behind the sales tax on services
initiative as..
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WELCOME
Utah tax reform: Create a crisis and sell it to the public
Ronald Mortensen, Ph.D.
Co-Founder, CitizensForTaxFairness.org
July 29, 2019
Key Points
Utah’s Republican
governor and Republican legislators created a funding imbalance by driving up
income tax collections while suppressing sales tax collections. Republicans then
packaged this as a crisis in order to convince Utahns that the state has to
find new things to tax. The Republicans’
end-game is for the governor to call a special session and for legislators to enact
taxes on more things with the incidence of those taxes falling primarily on low
and middle-income Utahns and on small businesses. Republicans
voting for the bill will be rewarded with large campaign contributions from big
businesses and by the uber-rich since they will benefit the most from it. Unless Utahns
take action to stop this, they will soon be paying more taxes in order to fund
even more state spending, to further socialize big business costs and to reduce
income taxes paid by the uber-rich.
Click here to read the entire article.
Talking Points Tax Reform Task Force Meeting – Layton
7-8-19
Ronald Mortensen, CitizensForTaxFairness.org
Utah’s Republican governors and legislators have a
tax and spending problem. During the past 20
years, population increased by 45% and inflation by 44%. However, the state budget, exclusive of
federal funds, increased by 146%. Add in
federal funds and it’s up 160%. So state spending
increased 3 times faster than population growth, 60% faster than population and
inflation combined and roughly 2.6 times faster than median income which
increased by 55%.
Utah has a sales tax exemption problem. Exemptions extended
to certain privileged, big businesses allow them to socialize their costs and privatize their profits by avoiding all
sales and corporate income tax payments. For example, a
privileged Utah company that manufactures Wigits pays no sales tax on business
inputs. Thus, during the
production process no sales tax is collected on any of the say, $500,000 in inputs. And when the
completed the Wigit is sold out of state for $1,000,000 no Utah state sales tax
is collected—a loss of over $60,000 in sales tax revenue. Likewise, the
privileged business pays no income tax on revenue from the Wigits sold
out-of-state.
Therefore, low and
middle-income earners along with small businesses are left to make up the tax
losses.
If you are determined to modernize the tax structure, then
do something more than just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Implement the PowerBall and
MegaMillion Lotteries so Utahns can buy lottery tickets without driving to
Idaho or Wyoming. In addition to the
revenue from ticket sales, a one billion dollar Utah winner would pay the state
50 million dollars in additional income tax.
Consider legalizing and taxing online sports betting – a $300 billion business and Utahns already bet on
sports. Require candidates for political office to pay a sales tax
on all campaign donations that they take in. The 2018, 4th
Congressional District race would have brought in roughly $550,000 in sales tax revenue
to the state ($9 million spent by both
candidates--$5,786,427 Love, $3,384,890 McAdams). The Salt Lake Mayoral race to date would have
brought in $60,000.
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Sunday, October 20, 2019