COLUMBIA, S.C. - Plans to cut property and income taxes didn't get rave reviews from the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.

Instead, there was an abundance of skepticism for Gov. Mark Sanford's House-passed plan to reduce the state's top income tax rate and a bill from Sen. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn, that increases the state's sales tax to pay for eliminating property taxes on homes and cars.

Sanford's plan sounds like "the universal sky hook that we've been looking for for years" to lift everyone up, said Senate Minority Leader John Land, D-Manning.

Tom Davis, Sanford co-chief of staff, told the panel that lowering the top income tax rate from 7 percent to 4.75 during the next decade would spur economic growth and job creation. It's also crucial in a state where 3,600 small businesses have evaporated between 1998 and 2002, Davis said.

But income taxes amount to little more than a "twinkle as far as a business man is concerned in my experience," Sen. Verne Smith, R-Greer, told Davis. Smith runs an Upstate tire company.

"I can assure you that we do look at the income tax," Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, said. Ryberg ran a chain of convenience stores. A lower tax rate would have put more money into the economy, Ryberg said.

Davis, a lawyer who helped run a Beaufort area law firm, said small businesses like his could save $25,000 a year with Sanford's proposal, Davis said. And that's enough to add a paralegal to the payroll, he said.

The role income taxes play in the state's economic growth is a key point in the debate awaiting Sanford's plan. Thomas pointed out that the state attracted huge companies, including BMW's automative manufacturing facility in Greer, during recent years with its current rate.

Davis said the industrial job growth game has changed since then. Inexpensive land and labor are no longer the top draws, he said.

While Davis conceded the income tax plan was "no silver bullet," others wondered if it was a lead balloon.

An educated work force is now a top draw, Land said. And the tax cut bills offer little in the way of adding extra dollars to providing that, he said.

Sen. Linda Short, D-Chester, wondered what would happen to people on the lower rungs of the state's economic ladder if the $1 billion Sanford's plan would cost no longer came into the state's coffers to provide services for them.

Holly Ulbrich, an economist with Clemson's Strom Thurmond Institute, told the Finance Committee there can be good reasons for cutting taxes. But the value of a home or a car are typically good indications of a person's ability to pay them.

Thomas' plan would be more regressive. Lower income people wouldn't get as much of a break on their car taxes, but would face higher sales taxes on goods they buy, she said. "I don't see any equity or fairness," she said. Those same people also tend to rent homes and aren't likely to reap benefits from lower property taxes, she said.

Sanford's income tax plan is a step in the right direction but needs adjustments, Ulbrich said. For instance, the rate would drop slightly each year the state's revenue forecast grew by more than two percent. Ulbrich says it should be tied to the rate of inflation plus a percentage point.

The bills now are headed to a subcommittee where senators will decide their fate.

"I think it's going to be very difficult to find a consensus," Sen. Thomas Alexander, a Walhalla Republican and member of the subcommittee.