Plus: How the housing market is exposing an "unpredictable" tax problem for Utah homeowners.
NFL? MLB? NHL? Here are the pro sports teams Utahns most want to see in the Beehive State |
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| | A quick look at the numbers helps illustrate how ready Utah sports fans are to get out and support their teams and, across the board, a state with just over 3 million residents hits well above its weight class. Last year the Jazz averaged over 18,000 fans for every home game, continuing a long-running streak of sellouts and coming in at No. 13 in the NBA rankings for home game crowds. Just for fun, that number puts them a slot above the Golden State Warriors. Real Salt Lake held down the No. 11 spot across the MLS last year when it comes to fandom flow, averaging over 20,000 faithful at each of its 17 home matches at America First Field in Sandy. But what new pro sports opportunities are Utahns most interested in seeing added to the local scene, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll? The NFL just edged out Major League Baseball among poll participants’ favorites coming in at 33% and 31%, respectively. Behind baseball, the next most sought after addition to the Utah pro sports portfolio was a National Women’s Soccer League franchise, with 18% support from respondents. The National Hockey League and Women’s National Basketball League rounded out the list, with 10% and 9%, respectively. |
Read more about why some think Utah is a great spot for another pro sports team. |
| Last year marked an unprecedented tax year, landing Utah homeowners with unusually high 2022 property tax bills thanks in part to the state’s surging home values, plus a shift in tax burden to make up for property types that paced behind those dramatic gains. This year, the problem isn’t going away. Rather, it’s even more complicated, especially as Utah home values dipped from their peak last spring as the housing market comes to terms with rising interest rates that now exceed 7%. If you’re confused about why your property tax bill is higher this year — with or without a proposed tax increase — although your home value might have gone down slightly, you’re not alone. In some areas, Utah homeowners are even seeing their values rise, but their tax burden decrease. What’s up with that? It’s an issue state tax officials and local assessors are grappling with again this year, trying their best to explain to perplexed taxpayers that it’s largely thanks to “tax shift,” a phenomenon in Utah’s tax system that has had an outsized impact on residential Utah property owners in recent years as home values have risen exponentially faster than other properties such as commercial real estate. A big part of the problem is assessors have far more information available to them to accurately value residential properties than they do commercial property types. And it's something Utah lawmakers are hoping to fix, creating what they see as a more predictable and fair tax burden to Utah homeowners. Read more about what a "tax shift" is and what Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, wants to do to address the problem. |
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