Tax reform is a fact of life: Short of repealing the sales tax, which is not on the table, there is no change legislators can propose that would be more radical than the decision Utah made in the 1930s to create the sales tax in the first place. Since then, we’ve made ongoing modifications as times have changed. Utah Foundation’s 2018 report, The Everyday Tax, revealed that our sales tax rates have generally trended upward in response to a changing fiscal picture — but that real per capita revenue has fluctuated over time. Which leads to the next point.
The sales tax base is in relative decline: During the past 40 years, Utah’s sales tax base has generally been declining as a percentage of Utahns’ personal income.
