Utah Senate passes sweeping tax-restructuring package with grocery credit and targeted EITC

The Utah Senate on Dec. 12, 2019, approved a wide-ranging tax-restructuring package—fourth substitute Senate Bill 2001—that cuts individual and corporate income-tax rates, restores some dependent exemptions, expands the sales-tax base to include selected services and previously exempt items, and creates targeted grocery credits and a limited state earned-income tax credit (EITC) to offset effects on low-income households.

Sponsor Senator Hilliard framed the measure as an effort to broaden the state’s consumption base so revenue will "grow with the growth in population," while returning some surplus revenue to taxpayers. "This bill reduces individual and corporation income tax rates from 4.95 down to 4.66," Hilliard said on the floor. He described a package of policies that also "transfers Medicaid match money" in the separate behavioral-health bill and that includes measures to help school lunches and rural roads.

Key provisions explained on the floor include:

- A reduction…