Utah
Utah governor signs ‘historic’ $400M tax cut
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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a sequence of payments on Wednesday to finalize a $400 million tax lower, together with lowering the state’s revenue tax price from 4.85% to 4.65%.
The revenue tax lower accounts for $208 million of the Legislature’s tax reduction, which quantities to round $208 in annual financial savings for a mean household of 4 making $80,000 per yr.
The tax lower is the most important in state historical past and features a additional lower by eradicating the state portion of gross sales tax on meals — however that half is contingent on voters approving a constitutional modification in 2024.
“It isn’t typically whenever you’ve been a state for over 120 years that you simply get to do issues which can be actually historic, and immediately is a kind of actually historic days,” Cox mentioned throughout a ceremonial signing within the Gold Room on the Capitol.
“It isn’t simply in a single space; it is in a number of totally different areas that can profit each individual in our state not directly,” Cox mentioned of the tax lower. “We all know that there are numerous which can be struggling to make ends meet. They are going to be helped by this.”
Cox urged voters to approve the constitutional modification that may loosen the earmark that reserves revenue tax income for public schooling.
“I simply need to use this second to encourage the folks of Utah to vote to take away the gross sales tax on meals,” he mentioned. “I feel that that is good for everybody, particularly those that are struggling to make ends meet.”
The tax package deal signed by Cox in HB54 additionally expands the Social Safety tax credit score to folks incomes as much as $75,000 per yr, permits pregnant girls to say a double dependent exemption for youngsters the yr they’re born, and will increase the earned revenue tax credit score from 15% to twenty% of the federal tax credit score.
Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, additionally praised the report spending by the Legislature for schooling, amongst different issues, whereas nonetheless prioritizing tax reduction.
“We have mentioned 2023 was going to be the yr of the tax lower time and again and once more,” he mentioned. “However behind every one in every of these tax cuts is a report effort in spending. It is fairly superb that you simply’re in a position to lower taxes. A whole lot of states try this. A whole lot of legislatures try this. However to have the ability to fund providers — report spending for schooling, report spending for infrastructure, report spending for housing, report spending for nearly every part — be capable of present the providers that the state wants and to have the ability to lower taxes, what an amazing honor to have the ability to serve with so many nice individuals who try this nice service within the state of Utah.”
“There’s loads of issues we might have discovered to place the cash into, however … I feel all of us consider that the reward for that extremely onerous work for the residents of the state of Utah can be to allow them to preserve extra of their very own hard-earned cash in their very own pockets and select to spend it on issues that matter to them,” mentioned Home Speaker Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville.
Critics of the tax discount have argued that it might primarily profit increased earners, however Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, the sponsor of HB54, mentioned the Social Safety and earned revenue tax credit would profit lower- and middle-income earners.
“We tried to strike a steadiness,” he advised the Deseret Information earlier this month.
The Senate handed the invoice 22-6 and the Home 50-11, although Democrats voted towards it, saying they opposed combining the gross sales tax on meals repeal with the remainder of the invoice whereas negotiations over the constitutional modification had been nonetheless ongoing.