- Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill cutting Utah's income tax rate to 4.45%.
- The cut will save a typical family around $45 annually.
- Cox also approved bills temporarily lowering the gas tax and making Olympic tickets exempt from sales tax.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utahns can expect to pay less in income taxes next year after Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill cutting the state's income tax rate for the sixth straight year.
The law will cut the income tax rate from 4.50% to 4.45% retroactive to the beginning of this year, meaning the tax savings of about $45 for a typical Utah family will show up on next year's returns.
Paired with a temporary reduction in the state's gas tax — which was also signed into law this week — and following federal tax changes in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," Cox and other state leaders are touting the policies as wins for affordability.
"It's a great start. Certainly, we're proud of what we've been able to do with the gas tax," the governor told reporters on the final night of the session earlier this month. "That's big relief, on top of the $1.4 billion in tax cuts that we've done over the past five years."
"I'm proud that we're now six-for-six in tax cuts," he added. "No other administration in our state's history can say that they were able to do that."
The income and gas tax cuts were signed in the latest tranche of bills approved by Cox on Monday, bringing the total to 334 of the 542 passed in the recent legislative session. The governor has until Thursday to take action on the remainder.
Several other tax-related proposals were inked this week, including a bill that would exempt ticket sales for the future 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games from sales taxes. The games, which will be held in Utah, are expected to generate $88 million in revenue for state and local governments.
The bill sponsor, Rep. Jon Hawkins, R-Pleasant Grove, told the Deseret News that local governments should still plan on getting that money somehow, but the specifics are still being worked out.
Cox also signed SB162, which closes a tax loophole that has allowed some online video streaming services to avoid charging sales tax in certain cases.
Here are some other bills that have recently been signed into law:
- HB32 codifies training standards for people collecting signatures to qualify candidates or initiatives on the ballot, whether the gatherers are hired workers or volunteers. It also requires county clerks to email and text voters who sign signature packets, notifying them of the status of their signatures.
- HB311 allocates $100,000 for a study on the "security risks of in-person voting versus voting by mail" and to determine best practices for a process requiring voters to return mailed ballots in person and show their ID. The law directs Utah Valley University's Gary R. Herbert Institute for Public Policy to conduct the study and report its findings to a legislative panel no later than October.
- HB76 requires companies that operate large data centers in Utah to disclose how much water those data centers use before construction and every year of operation.
