Hi Kid @HiKidHey asked this on X (Twitter): “So what does that mean for voters? Who is ultimately responsible for the TABOR violation? The local county clerk or the district’s designated election official? Genuinely curious.”
Hi Kid @HiKidHey asked this on X (Twitter): “So what does that mean for voters? Who is ultimately responsible for the TABOR violation? The local county clerk or the district’s designated election official? Genuinely curious.”
Property tax caps have been restored in Colorado. That’s thanks to the pressure from the Citizens’ Tax Cap, compelling state politicians to address the property tax crisis in an August 2024 Legislative Special Session because local governments didn’t lower the property tax mill levies and alleviate the problem.
The property tax crisis was created because voters in local elections in the past has unwittingly voted to forfeit caps in our constitutional Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) and statutory 5.5% Annual Property Tax Cap, recognizing later it was a big mistake. State politicians had mixed feelings about the 2024 Special Session, fiscally conservative legislators thought that HB 24B-1001 didn’t provide enough assurance that residents would not be taxed out of homes. Some “progressive” elected officials thought it was horrible to provide property tax relief in response to a citizen initiative, calling it a “fecal sandwich”.
Jefferson County, like Arapahoe and Weld, has maintained tax caps for over 30 years due to vigilant citizens rejecting misleading ballot issues, such as 1A in 2019 and 2022. However, this is at risk again with a new version of 1A on the 2024 ballot. This version, like before, uses deceptive language and aims to permanently remove these caps.
The key is to share this information quickly and widely. Remind your friends and networks to vote NO on 1A to preserve the caps. Ballots will arrive around October 14-15.
The recent legislative special session caused by the Citizen’s Tax Cap implemented two key changes:
Jefferson County’s 1A, being set before this date, skirts these new transparency rules.
Governments often use tax dollars for public persuasion campaigns and exploit legal loopholes during election seasons to get away with it. I recently discussed this in an interview with Free State Colorado, which you can watch here.
The past proponents of Jeffco 1A tax hikes even resorted to tainting our local TABOR notice booklet in 2019. The shenanigans didn’t stop there.
Our current county commissioners Andy Kerr, Lesley Dahlkemper, and Tracy Kraft-Tharp, have stepped up the attack on taxpayers’ wallets using a $340,000 taxpayer-funded political strategist, and continue to push their intentionally misleading ballot language to eliminate the caps.
Voters must reject this behavior. Vote NO on Jefferson County 1A to keep tax caps in place.
– Property owners: Vote no to avoid excessively higher property taxes year after year.
– Renters: Rising property taxes will be passed on as rent increases, making housing less affordable.
– Consumers: Higher business property taxes will raise prices for goods and services.
Vote NO on 1A to protect yourself from excessively increasing costs. If you can’t afford more at the grocery store, gas pump, insurance bill, or rent – you sure can’t afford removing property tax caps forever. Even if you can afford excessive taxes, can your neighbor on a fixed income handle it or your grandkids?
If you’d like to find out more information, please join these informative meetings hosted by taxpayer advocacy non-profits:
December 20, 2024 By Nash Herman
The University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business recently released their 60th annual Business Outlook for 2025, and, despite a moderate outlook in 2025, the report includes some disturbing trends in the Colorado economy. Let’s take a look at some of what’s going wrong.
Troubling trends
As pointed out by Denver Post business writer Aldo Svaldi, Colorado was the fifth fastest growing economy in the country in the last 15 years, but was 41st this year.
In terms of personal income growth, Colorado moved from third to 39th.
Although Colorado only moved down from sixth to 15th for employment growth, it comes with the caveat that the job gains this year were skewed toward government, education and healthcare, and leisure and hospitality.
Conversely, the growth of the high-paying professional and business services industry has continued a downward trend since 2022.
Fueled by slowing migration to Colorado and an aging population, Colorado’s labor force growth ranking also moved from sixth to 29th.
Taxes, spending and regulation
Obviously, some of the problems with Colorado’s economy are externally caused, like the lingering effects of the pandemic and subsequent inflation from federal spending.
However, I think there is still more to be said as to why Colorado’s economy seems to be stuttering now.
Colorado’s shift toward bigger government and away from the free market is why these problems are beginning to manifest. Over-regulation, over-spending, and over-taxation are the key culprits. To Coloradans who have witnessed the economy’s decline, the most noticeable difference between today and twenty years ago is that the state now more closely resembles California more than the entrepreneurial Colorado of old. Continue reading
List of Real Pro-Liberty Colorado organizations: https://freestatecolorado.com/jeffco-… It’s the time of the year when Coloradans generously open their wallets to support charities across the State. However, one of Colorado’s largest charitable organizations gave $20,000 to a political committee that helped raise taxes in Jefferson County by $66 million this year! The Colorado Gives Foundation, which runs Colorado Gives Day, brings in around $500,000,000 yearly, and 3,7000 charitable organizations rely on them to help raise money! However, Liberty-minded Coloradans need to know that this organization is responsible for one of the worst assaults on the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) that we saw this year. In this video, Natalie Menten provides the details with tax documents, Secretary of State reports and more!
Last April, I shared some data showing that Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights had forced politicians in the Centennial State to return $8.2 billion of tax revenue.
The state’s politicians did not want to return the money. But TABOR is a spending cap and the rules require that any extra tax revenue (above and beyond what would finance allowed levels of spending) has to be returned to taxpayers.
This spending cap has been good news for the state’s economy, as illustrated by the chart.
But I now need to update the benefits of TABOR.
That’s because we have another year of data. And, as explained in this report from Center Square, taxpayers are getting another refund. This time, their savings will be more than $1 billion. Continue reading
If you see this on your ballot, you are voting for a TAX INCREASE!
“Ballot titles for tax or bonded debt increases shall begin, “SHALL (DISTRICT) TAXES BE INCREASED (first, or if phased in, final, full fiscal year dollar increase) ANNUALLY…?” or “SHALL (DISTRICT) DEBT BE INCREASED (principal amount), WITH A REPAYMENT COST OF (maximum total district cost), …?”
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/info_center/laws/COConstitution/ArticleXSection20.html
The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights says taxes can’t be raised without voter approval and the state must refund money that exceeds certain caps.
It’s not easy to find information on the judges appearing on your Colorado ballot. Rebecca Sopkin is a Constitutional Attorney and TABOR Foundation Board Member.
In this video, she is sharing her methodology for determining who to vote for, some resources for voters to use, and her picks for this year’s ballot. Links from the video https://freestatecolorado.com/sopkin/
#ItsYourMoneyNotTheirs
#DontBeFooled
#VoteOnTaxesAndFees
#FeesAreTaxes
#TABOR
#FollowTheMoney
#FollowTheLaw
#ThankGodForTABOR