But in the case of the $109 million individual income tax cut the Utah Legislature just passed, the conventional wisdom does not appear to apply exactly. Even experts disagree about the new tax's impact on taxpayers at different income levels.

The new state income tax just enacted will apply a flat 5 percent rate to all taxpayers. But it also employs a credit system based on federal deductions and personal exemptions that phases out as a taxpayer's income rises.

According to the fiscal note on the bill, 89 percent of Utah income-tax payers will get a tax cut from this bill. The 11 percent who won't represent some 120,000 taxpayers. And some of them could be large families with high incomes and big federal tax deductions for home mortgages and hefty charitable contributions, that is, stereotypical Republican households.

So at least in their case, it would be unfair to say that the Republican Legislature stacked the deck with this tax cut to benefit their own.

Some Utah tax officials believe that this new system actually is more progressive than the old one, which was progressive in name only because virtually all taxpayers fell into the top bracket, paid the top marginal rate, and were able to deduct half of their federal tax burden. Others disagree.

That said, we add a disclaimer that it is hard to say precisely how the tax bill will affect a particular taxpayer. That depends upon income, filing status, number of dependents and a host of other circumstances.

If the impacts of the income-tax cut are murky, this Legislature's changes in the sales tax are more clear-cut. These lawmakers will go down in history for knocking another percentage point off the sales tax on groceries, reducing it from 2.75 percent to 1.75 percent. They also adjusted local and county sales-tax levies for transit, highways and resort communities to make up for the loss of groceries in their tax base.

Cutting the sales tax on groceries has been a goal of advocates for low-income people for decades, because the tax is disproportionately hard on the poor. This year and last, it was a Republican governor and Legislature that answered their pleas.

Some Utah tax officials believe that this new system actually is more progressive than the old one, which was progressive in name only. . . . It is hard to say precisely how the tax bill will affect a particular taxpayer.