The Salt Lake Chamber encourages you to contact your legislator and let them know that you support calling a Special Session in 2006.

Governor Huntsman’s proposal to reform Utah’s individual income tax offers a dual tax system that will provide immediate tax relief and introduce an optional flat tax system in 2007. 

Some of the advantages of the proposal include:

• Lowering the top marginal rate from 7 percent to about 5.3 percent, which would help spur economic growth
• Providing a tax break for all taxpayers by spreading out the brackets
• Making Utah’s individual income tax rate dramatically more competitive among neighboring states
• Making the change easy for taxpayers to understand and implement by simply adding one line to the current state income tax form
• Ensuring that funding for education is not adversely impacted, since lowering tax rates spurs economic growth, builds a stronger economy, and generates more government revenues than would otherwise be the case.

The urgency for a special session occurs because $70 million was set aside for tax reform during the 2006 General Legislative Session. By acting now, taxpayers will receive tax relief when they file their taxes next year. Now is also the last opportunity for tax forms and tax software to be prepared in time for the preparation and filing of taxes for 2006.