Mainers – with the help of visitors to the state – pay close to $1 billion a year in sales tax. They shell out another $1.2 billion in personal income tax.

Smokers are taxed $96 million; those that buy or sell property pay $26 million in real estate transfer taxes; and, if you like to eat out, you’re contributing part of the $100 million collected each year through the special sales tax on meals.

Lawmakers would like to shift those collection pots around – putting more burden on sales and sins and less on personal income.

The idea with the most support from legislators – but not the lobbyists who filled the halls during a public hearing last week – is to lower the sales tax rate from 5 to 4 percent and broaden the base of goods and services taxed. Money raised by broadening the base would be used to lower the income tax.

Rep. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth and co-chair of the Taxation Committee, said the notion of putting a sales tax on everything wasn’t realistic.

He is asking his committee this week to rate additional items to be taxed based on the administrative difficulty in collecting the tax; avoidance of double-taxing, as in the case of taxing a raw material and then the finished product; and, not taxing “necessities of life,” like groceries, fuel and health care.

According to the numbers:

• lowering the current rate by 1 percent – without broadening the base – would cost around $150 million

• getting rid of all exemptions and exclusions would raise more than $1 billion at the current 5 percent tax rate

The Taxation Committee’s goal is to craft something that can pass the House and Senate. There is bipartisan support on several initiatives, and Gov. John Baldacci has said he’ll support a package as long as it’s “revenue neutral” – meaning it won’t raise the overall tax burden.

It’s all been tried before, with some legislators joking they ought to resubmit the old bills and see if they fly this time.

The one thing most agree on is Maine’s income tax is too high, with the top rate kicking in at too low an income, and the lowest-income workers need relief.

According to numbers run by the Maine Revenue Service for the Taxation Committee on the income tax:

• 575,000 tax returns are filed annually by Maine citizens.

• Around 33 percent pay the highest rate of 8.5 percent; 20 percent pay 7 percent; 12 percent 4.5 percent; 14 percent pay 2 percent; and, 19 percent pay no income taxes.

• Only five states have rates higher than Maine’s top rate of 8.5 percent. It kicks in for individuals earning $17,350 or more and joint filers starting at $34,700

• It would cost $3 million to take 40,000 of the state’s lowest income earners off the tax rolls

• It costs the state $3 to process each of the 300,000 paper returns that come in and 75 cents to process e-filers

• Raising the state’s $2,850 personal exemption to the federal rate of $3,200 would cost more than $20 million annually or $3 million for every $50 increment

• Conforming with the federal government to allow deductions for Health Savings Accounts would cost $600,000

• Conforming with the federal government on estate tax exemptions would cost $15 million and eliminating the tax all together would cost $35 million – the amount now paid annually

To lower the income tax takes money and the biggest pot is in untaxed goods and services in the sales tax category. While they may spell political suicide, some of the most controversial items carry big revenue tags.

Taxing materials used in the manufacturing process would bring in $220 million; health services, $212 million; grocery staples, $52 million; fuel and electricity used in manufacturing, $35 million; and, coal, oil and wood for cooking and heating homes, $23 million.

Even if those are out, there is still plenty of money to be raised, based on an analysis done each year by the state on what is not taxed. The ones most often discussed are the professional services, excluding health care.

They include:

• $276 million by taxing finance, insurance and real estate services

• $128 million on construction services

• $105 million on professional, scientific and technical services

• $15 million on amusements and recreation

• $4 million on beauty parlors, health clubs and barber shop visits

Some would like to hit the cigarette tax again, while others warn that well has run dry.

Sen. Jonathan Courtney, R-York, said the higher tax simply runs cigarette sales over the border into New Hampshire.

“You can put together a lot of numbers behind a desk,” Courtney said of the Revenue Service projections, “but if you sit behind the cash register you get a little better idea.”

Rep. Earl Bierman, R-Sorrento, said the tax hits those who can least afford it. “They will still buy them. They’ll buy less food for the home,” to make up the difference, he said.

Tobacco revenue projections shows:

• Raising the cigarette tax by 4 cents would raise $3 million

• A 50-cent increase raises $38 million

• And, raising it $1 would garner $73 million

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