Bravo! Greg Bell

Hello again after my long absence! I have had a hard time motivating myself to blog lately, and the commencement of another tax filing season hasn't helped my apathy. However, I was rather excited and impressed at SB62 proposed by Sen.. Greg Bell R-Fruit Heights.

SB62 offers a refundable tuition credit to college students of 300 dollars to offset the cost of recent tuition hikes. I think it is a very positive idea that will help Utah down the right path towards fairer tax administration. The lack of broad and useful individual income tax breaks has been one of the biggest flaws with the Utah tax code and a useful education credit like this would be a very positive move.

There are some major concerns that should be addressed with this bill, (a) would the credit be available to parents of dependent college students, (b)would the state colleges and the Board of Regents use this credit as an excuse for additional tuition hikes. My other concern is that this credit is not written with any ridiculous exclusionary provisions (i.e. the famed Utah state hybrid credit )