T he Republican tax plan, sponsored by the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), would mean more total taxes for most Idahoans. There would be a huge tax shift with a higher sales tax to cut taxes for large property-owning corporations that need no relief.

The plan, which Gov. Jim Risch wants the Idaho Legislature to pass when it meets in special session on Friday, does nothing to remedy the basic property tax problem, continued inflation in the taxable value of homes.

More tax relief could be given to homeowners by further increasing or eliminating the $75,000 upper limit on the homeowner exemption. Or by replacing the $3 per $1,000 basic school levy only for homes, using state surplus revenue. No sales tax increase is required for either of those remedies.

With IACI’s tax plan:

■ Homeowners get no net tax relief. State Tax Commission figures show $105 million in added sales tax and $104 million in property tax savings.

■ Property tax savings for homes would be temporary. With no further adjustment in the homeowner exemption, the savings would be lost to further increases in taxable value in a year or two. The sales tax increase would continue.

■ Renters would lose, paying more sales tax with no equal reduction in rents.

■ Many businesses would lose, paying more business-related sales tax than their property tax savings. This applies particularly to businesses that lease space or are home-based.

■ Local control of schools would be reduced.

In promoting its plan, IACI relies on a big lie. It is telling legislators that the modest $25,000 update in the limit on the homeowner exemption approved in the regular legislative session will shift $47 million in taxes to nonresidential property in 2006.

Such a shift could happen only if there was no inflation in the taxable value of homes and no new residential construction.

Evidence that there is no such shift is provided by current State Tax Commission estimates of total taxable value and property taxes by category for 2006, with and without school levy replacement.

Those figures show no net reduction in the total taxable value of owner-occupied homes and no resulting increase in levies that would shift taxes to nonresidential property.

The figures show just the opposite, a further shift to residential property in 2006. Even with the update in the exemption, there is a projected $5.4 billion net increase in the taxable value of homes. With nonowner- occupied residential property, the total projected increase in residential taxable value is $13 billion.

With this huge increase, the commission projects a reduction in average levies. Such reductions would result in more than $40 million in property tax savings for commercial, utility, timber, mining and farm property in 2006 – without the proposed levy replacement.

IACI also ignores the fact that there was a huge tax shift to homes in recent years. Nonresidential property paid less because homes were paying more.

■ From 2000 to 2005 residential taxes increased four times as fast as total taxes on nonresidential property, 54 percent compared to 13 percent.

■ Residential property accounted for 57 percent of the total taxable value of Idaho property in 2000 but paid 84 percent of the five-year increase in property taxes.

■ In the last two years residential taxes increased nine times as much as nonresidential taxes, $143 million versus $15 million.

■ Inflation in the taxable value of commercial property averaged only 1 percent a year from 1995 to 2005.

While most Idahoans would lose with this plan, companies represented by IACI’s officers and directors would gain. Those include Idaho Power, Avista, Intermountain Gas, Qwest, Simplot, Micron, Monsanto, Potlatch, Washington Group International, Albertsons, Hewlett Packard, Union Pacific, US Bank and Wells Fargo.