What's happened: Utah legislators passed a tax reform bill at the end of 2019 that decreased income tax but increased sales tax on food, gas and some other services. In January 2020, lawmakers repealed the controversial legislation.
What's next: First-term legislator Rosemary Lesser wants to completely eliminate the sales tax on food. And she's not the only Utah lawmaker who feels that way.
Why?: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, low-income families spend 36% of their income on food, compared to 8% for high-income families.
“Taxing a necessity like food, which is so burdensome on the poor in our community, that’s what struck a nerve with me," Lesser said.
Her research also suggests that sales tax money pouring into Utah from online sales — a source of revenue that’s opened up just the past two years — more than compensates for revenue lost from a food tax.
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