The plan announced Monday by the governor and her special task force on tax reform is presented as being revenue-neutral. That means taxes created or raised over there balance the taxes trimmed or eliminated over here, bringing in roughly the same amount of revenue to the state.

One question for members of the Utah Legislature, who owe the outgoing governor's plan a full and fair hearing, is whether it adds up to something that might be called fairness-neutral. And fairness must be measured not only for one class of taxpayer against another, but also in terms of private wealth vs. the public commonwealth, and from one generation to the next.

The other question is whether, with stark needs for more funding for education, transportation and prisons, a revenue-neutral tax plan is really preferable to a revenue-boosting one.

Given the Legislature's inability to face such needs, however, it is understandable that Walker shuns any immediate revenue boost - which would be derided as a stealth tax hike - for a plan that should make the state's revenue portfolio more stable and, in years to come, more likely to grow with the state's needs.

The recurring theme of the governor's plan is to, in her commendable words, lower the rate and broaden the base. Thus the call for the state personal income tax, already an effective flat tax of 7 percent, to be lowered to truly flat, no-exemptions 4.9 percent. Such a cut, along with eliminating the less-lucrative corporate franchise tax, is the kind of policy Walker and her replacement, Jon Huntsman, see as key to attracting new business, boosting the economy and collecting more tax revenue.

The state sales tax, meanwhile, would be reduced from 4.75 percent to 3.75 percent, but applied to a great many services that are now beyond its reach.

Along with a small increase in the statewide property tax, the promise of this package is that it would appear to have squared the circle of tax policy by making notoriously regressive taxes actually work out to be progressive. Given that Utah's tax structure is far short of the progressive ideal - falling the hardest on those who can most afford to pay - that would not only be a clever trick, but a very good one.

The theory is that by reducing the sales tax on such basic goods as groceries and clothing, while adding it to the growing service sector of the economy, the sales tax in the long run will boost state revenue even as it reserves its hardest hit for rich people who buy services that poor people can't. Rich people stuff such as weekly pedicures and annual landscaping, accounting services and legal fees.

Even the small hike in property taxes, by the governor's math, won't overcome the savings in sales and income taxes for a low-income family unless that family owns a house of a value far beyond its means.

The obvious objection to a services tax, though, is that it will hurt the working poor by taxing a few things they need but already have a hard time paying for, most obviously health care and day care. Even if further review still shows a net savings for middle- and low-income families, the psychological and political impact of that could be prohibitive.

One thing about the governor's plan is clearly correct, and must be carried through in any alternative. It views the whole of the state tax system, sees it for the dinosaur it is and proposes a comprehensive solution that, no matter how some parts of it may be derided, balances.

We could do a lot worse than that. In fact, we are.