Nearly everyone in Utah is paying less or the same amount in income tax as they were before a spate of changes to the state's income tax structure, according to a report by legislative researchers.

The report, based on Utah Tax Commission data on returns filed in 2008, found that 97 percent of Utah taxpayers have seen their state income taxes stay the same or decline after the Legislature passed reforms over several years, starting in 2005.

The overall effect of those changes was that Utah's income tax rate was cut from 7 to 5 percent and many tax deductions were eliminated or replaced with tax credits.

The report shows that the biggest cuts have been enjoyed by the very wealthy, with taxpayers in the top 1 percent seeing a reduction of 0.4 percent in their tax rate. By comparison, 70 percent of taxpayers, on average, saw their tax rate fall by half that.

Most taxpayers saw their taxes decrease by $300 or less, the report says. The lowest-income filers saw little, if any change. The changes were most extreme at the very high income levels, which saw large increases or decreases in the tax rate.

Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, helped shepherd the changes and says they appear to have been positive.

The goal of tax reform was to create a system less susceptible to the big volatile swings of previous years and to make the state more competitive with its neighbors, he said. The change seems to have accomplished that while giving nearly all residents a tax break.

While the reform has resulted in about $200 million less in revenue to schools, Niederhauser said he believes in the long run it will result in increased revenues.

The report notes that taxpayers may not perceive reductions in the amount they pay, because less was typically withheld from a taxpayer's check, meaning smaller refunds at the end of the year.

While the tax changes in the state resulted in a "flatter" 5 percent tax rate, the report found that the tax structure, overall, remains progressive, because the more a taxpayer makes, the higher the percentage of his or her total income is paid in taxes.