The citizens of Utah are facing increased taxation to compensate for less revenue into city, county, and state coffers.
Within the last year it has been brought to the attention of the Weber County Commission and the Utah State Legislature members that there was over $100 million in delinquent property taxes due throughout the State of Utah and about $13 million in delinquent property taxes due in Weber County alone.
The bulk of this delinquent property tax money is owed by large corporations and property owners who use the favorable Utah tax foreclosure laws and low penalties to defer their tax payments for up to 5 years. In the meantime, most citizens (98% in Utah), pay their property taxes on time and therefore subsidize these tax scofflaws that do not pay their taxes on time each year.
It should be noted that Weber County and other Utah counties have a tax commission to review tax disputes and delinquencies on an individual basis. This review is to insure a fair disposition with hardship cases on individual taxpayers. However, the culprits of this problem are not the small, individual property tax payers.
We recommend that the Weber County Commissioners should take the lead in supporting strong, effective state legislation in the 2010 session through their membership in the Utah Association of Counties to encourage all property tax payers to pay their property taxes on time. Further,Weber County itself should expand the ordinance that currently prohibits development on land with delinquent property taxes due to also deny planning petitions if a developer is delinquent on ANY property taxes within Weber County.
If these suggested changes could reduce the delinquent taxes by 50% through a strong legislative and County effort, it could infuse over $50 million dollars into the tax coffers of the state of Utah and $6.5 million into Weber County collections as well.
Larry Zini
Huntsville
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