This week, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. insisted the idea will get moving again. His own team of economists is running models for a 5 percent flat tax - both with and without the so-called "tithing deduction."

"Tax reform is anything but dead," the governor said Thursday at his monthly televised press conference on KUED. "I'm still shooting for a flatter, fairer, simpler tax."

A week ago, at the Tax Reform Task Force meeting, attorney Jon Butler read a statement from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' leaders arguing that a flat tax and the charitable giving donation are not mutually exclusive. Huntsman's advisers retreated from their scheduled presentation of a 4.6 percent flat tax to run their models again. And Utah Taxpayers Association leaders acknowledged they would have to retool their proposal for a 4.9 percent flat tax without the tithing deduction.

Taxpayers Association Vice President Mike Jerman believes both his plan and the governor's will have to accommodate the church's wishes.

"The political reality is clear that any proposal will have to have a deduction for charitable giving," Jerman said.

Even with alterations for the state's churches and non-profit organizations, other parts of the flat tax proposals face opposition. To keep the rate low, each flat-tax version has cut popular deductions, including credits for dependents or home mortgage interest. The tax debate is pitting some of the state's most powerful interest groups one against another: Utah's large families, the Utah Association of Realtors and the state's churches.

Huntsman said his goal is to shave two percentage points off the state's top tax rate of 7 percent, which is imposed on about 80 percent of residents. His original proposal - which did not include a deduction for charitable giving or mortgage interest - set the top rate at 4.6 percent.

The governor's new plan will include credits for the sales tax on food and for investments. Huntsman's team - which includes three Brigham Young University professors and accountant Keith Prescott, who prepares the Huntsman family's personal tax returns - will present its ideas in a few weeks.

"It will be the culmination of a lot of work with a lot of consultation with the community," Huntsman said.

Meantime, Huntsman is holding off calls for tax cuts - including corporate income taxes. The latest state estimates show a $41 million surplus in the first two months of this fiscal year. But the governor says cutting taxes before seeing the fallout from Hurricane Katrina and Rita on energy prices and the economy is unwise.

"These are very early, preliminary numbers," Huntsman said. "We have to get the real data."