Tax panel to get a move on
"We're going to kick this up in high mode," Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, said on the same day the House named the final members to the task force, which will meet for the first time May 9.
"We're going to be ambitious," Harper said. "Our goal is to address every aspect of the tax code. I hope we can do it. If we can't, we'll continue the aspects that we don't get to into next year."
His comments come after the task force's other co-chairman, Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, issued a similar warning during an address to the Utah Taxpayers Association last week. Bramble said the task force was getting off to a late start.
That was due at least in part to the delay in filling the House slots on the task force, the result of a change in the makeup of task forces approved during last month's special session of the Legislature.
Harper said he, too, had hoped the task force would have already met by now. "I would have liked to have started a month ago, but we're going to run with the time that we have," he said. "We are where we are."
Huntsman tried and failed to get the 2005 Legislature to approve eliminating the corporate income tax over several years. Lawmakers balked, concerned how the phase-out would fit into other changes to the tax structure.
Members of the task force include two appointments made by the governor Friday — his deputy chief of staff, Neil Ashdown, and Pam Hendrickson, chairwoman of the state Tax Commission.
The GOP House members named Monday are Majority Whip Stephen Urquhart of St. George and Reps. John Dougall of American Fork, Greg Hughes of Draper, Todd Kiser of Sandy, Merlynn Newbold of South Jordan, and Gordon Snow of Roosevelt.
Two House Democrats were also put on the panel, Minority Leader Ralph Becker and Minority Caucus Manager Roz McGee, both of Salt Lake City.
Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, and Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, the head of the pro-business Utah Taxpayers Association, had already been appointed to the task force.
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