Category Archives: Legal Issues

Jan 12

Polis Pitches Tax Cuts, But His Democrat-Run Statehouse Isn’t On Board

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Polis Pitches Tax Cuts, But His Democrat-Run Statehouse Isn’t On Board

Patrick Gleason, Contributor
I cover the intersection of state & federal policy and politics.

Dec 15, 2023,05:40am EST

Colorado Governor Jared Polis (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
GETTY IMAGES

If Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) were to coauthor a New Republic column with Paul Krugman or another famous progressive economist touting the benefits of greater government spending, that would surprise many. Yet the ideological analog to that occurred recently, with Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) coauthoring an article with economist Arthur Laffer, in which they tout the benefits of reduced tax rates. Governor Polis and Dr. Laffer also contend that the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), Colorado’s thirty one year old constitutional amendment that prevents state spending from growing faster than population growth plus inflation and requires tax hikes to receive voter approval, is flawed.

In their op-ed, published in National Review on December 7, Polis and Laffer lament that tax limitation measures “such as Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, that focus on tax payments rather than tax rates totally miss the opportunity to address the damage done by high tax rates.” Polis and Laffer bemoan the fact that TABOR surpluses are not automatically refunded in the form of tax rate reductions and instead go out as rebate checks.

“If there is an excess in tax revenues above population growth and inflation, as defined by TABOR, that means tax rates should have been lower but were not,” write Polis and Laffer. “The law serves as a signal that tax rates have been too high. The proper response to this signal is not to have it keep signaling, but to get the message and cut tax rates permanently.”

What’s more, Governor Polis’s stated desire for tax rate reductions is belied by his enactment of a bill that will make it more difficult to pass income tax cuts in the future by ballot measure. That new law, which was signed by Polis in 2021, mandates that citizen-initiated income tax cuts feature poison pill ballot language claiming the measure will reduce funding for education, healthcare, and other priorities, even when that’s not true.

Colorado House Minority Leader Mike Lynch (R) and Senator Byron Pelton (R) introduced a bill during last month’s special legislative session that would have reduced Colorado’s income tax rate from 4.4% to 4.0%. Governor Polis acknowledges the economic benefits of lowering income tax rates in his recent column, yet he did not support that bill, which was killed in committee along party lines.

Click (HERE) to go to Forbes to read the rest of this article

Jun 20

Coloradans have voted on 36 TABOR-related ballot measures since 1993, rejecting 69% of them

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Coloradans have voted on 36 TABOR-related ballot measures since 1993, rejecting 69% of them

By Jackie Mitchell
In Ballot measures
June 19, 2023 at 9:57 PM

Coloradans have decided on 36 statewide ballot measures that were designed to increase revenue for the state, which required voter approval under TABOR. Of the 36 measures, 11 (30.56%) were approved and 25 (69.44%) were defeated.

Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), adopted in 1992, was designed to require statewide voter approval of all new taxes, tax rate increases, extensions of expiring taxes, mill levy increases, valuation for property assessment increases, or tax policy changes resulting in increased tax revenue.

Of the 36 measures, 17 were referred to the ballot by the state legislature and 19 were placed on the ballot through citizen initiative petitions. Of the 11 approved measures, 10 were referred to the ballot by the state legislature and one was a citizen initiative.

Highlights:

 

  • 14 of the measures were designed to increase a tax. Of the 14 measures, two were approved and 12 were defeated. In 2004, voters approved an initiative to increase the tobacco tax to fund educational and healthcare programs. In 2020, voters approved a measure placed on the ballot by the state legislature to increase tobacco taxes and create a tax on nicotine products to fund health and education programs.

Continue reading →

Jun 20

TABOR and the 2023 legislative session

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TABOR and the 2023 legislative session

We follow the bills as best we can, but do not rate them, relying instead on the excellent and thorough Colorado Union of Taxpayer’s work and that done by others, such as the Republican Liberty Caucus.  There were a few good ideas and plenty of bad ones, but we focused only on those that affect TABOR.

The General Assembly pretty much left the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights alone until the final week of the legislative session.  Then, legislators dropped a big negative on Colorado with a bill to place Proposition HH on the ballot this fall.

The entire idea is bad.  It is very complex and convoluted legislation that proponents tout as lowering your property taxes.  It fails.  The Gallagher Amendment was repealed a couple years back.  That action removed the method to tamp down increases in residential property taxes.  With property taxes threatened to soar next year, Proposition HH (Senate Bill 23-303) takes money owed back to the taxpayer to reduce some (perhaps half) of the property tax increase.  It literally uses a big tax increase by taking your TABOR rebates in order to pay down your property tax increases!  Dastardly.  Sneaky.  Terrible.

What is your TABOR Committee doing about it?  We brought together like-minded organizations to protect TABOR by defeating this crumby, lose-lose measure, in which only the government benefits.  The new coalition will function as a clearinghouse and share ideas and efforts, although no strong core has materialized as yet.  Your TABOR Committee already filed to set up a statewide issue committee (a legal necessity to conform to election requirements).  We funded it with seed money and secured a matching donation.

Are you torqued off yet?

Please join the fight by volunteering.  Let your interest be known by emailing info@TheTaborCommittee.com or calling 303-747-7460.  Please also donate to our efforts by sending a check to the TABOR Coalition at 720 Kipling, Suite 12, Lakewood 80215.

Proposition HH has more pieces to it – a hike in the State revenue and spending limitation that allows government to grow faster than the private sector and a provision about the senior exemption.  One of our allies filed a lawsuit because the measure violates the single-subject rule.  It has been joined by a dozen local governments!

A different measure on the fall ballot asks voters to allow the State to keep higher marijuana taxes.  A provision in TABOR requires proposed tax increases to estimate the amount to be raised.  In order to keep governments from monkeying with the estimate, any overage must be returned and the rate adjusted downward, unless the taxpayers in a second vote allow the higher receipts.

There was another anti-TABOR bill that adjusts some definitions on insurance premiums taxes.  TABOR does not allow arguments that any higher taxes are too little to care about (de minimis).  But, in a lawsuit several years ago filed by the TABOR Foundation (our sister organization), the Colorado Supreme Court errantly imposed a de minimis provision.  We cannot fight the precedent set then, and the amount this year truly is small – less than $7,000.

Sep 29

Governor Polis, The Refunds You’re Sending Out Are Due To TABOR!!!

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FYI. This was on Twitter yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BoulderGuyTC@BoulderGuyTC
Replying to @wattystrick @GovofCO and @colorado_tabor

Watty, The reason is they tried to eliminate Tabor (again), and when they found out from the courts they couldn’t Polis decided to do the letter thing. What is truly two-faced , is the Democrats have written into their 2022 platform to eliminate Tabor…

Tool Man – Fear Not! @12Toolman
Replying to @wattystrick @GovofCO and @colorado_tabor
It’s an inconvenient fact that polis chooses to ignore during an election cycle…. Appealing to the uninformed voter..

Sep 19

Menten: A citizen’s guide to weighing in on local TABOR ballot measures

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One great, though lesser-known benefit provided in the Colorado Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) is the local ballot issue notice. This guide is sent by mail at least 30-days before the election to all households with one or more registered voters.

The ballot issue notice includes content and details about upcoming local ballot measures that increase taxes, add debt, or suspend TABOR revenue limits. It includes a section where registered voters have the opportunity to submit FOR or AGAINST comments, up to 500 words each.

You should know that there are two types of TABOR ballot issue notices. One notice is for the statewide elections and commonly referred to as the “Blue Book.” The notice discussed here is for elections held by local governments such as a city, town, school district, or special taxing district. You could potentially get more than one of these notices in the mail.

Several years back, it was discovered that out that of some 300 local tax issues throughout the state during a ballot year, only 15 had the taxpayer’s voice printed in a ballot issue notice.  That’s only 5 percent!  You can make a big difference and amplify your voice by being an author of the next ballot issue notice where you live.  Considering that you reach thousands of voters, being able to submit comments in the TABOR notice costs almost nothing and takes relatively little time and energy.

What follows is an explanation of how to participate in the local ballot issue FOR or AGAINST comment process. As in so much of government bureaucracy, instructions must be followed with no room for alteration.  The deadline for this year is Friday, September 23 no later than noon to have your comments included in the local TABOR notice.

To continue reading this story at Complete Colorado, please click (HERE):

Sep 09

Colorado Springs Gazette: New ‘affordable housing’ measure misses the mark

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Colorado Springs Gazette: New ‘affordable housing’ measure misses the mark

  • Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board
  •  Updated 
090822-cp-web-oped-csgeditorial-1
Rendering of the future affordable multifamily apartment complex to be located at 8315 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver’s East Colfax neighborhood.

Image courtesy of Van Meter Williams Pollack

While visiting Western Slope resort towns, tourists count on some of Colorado’s most aggrieved workers. Few consider how these employees live.

Recent immigrants, students on summer break and others wait tables, clean hotel rooms, park cars, guide rafting tours, teach ski lessons and provide a large assortment of other services required for tourism.

Visitors typically don’t think about the commutes tourism workers make for jobs in Steamboat Springs, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, Glenwood Springs and other resort towns with exorbitant costs of living.

Sperling’s Best Places finds housing in Aspen costs 707.4% more than the national average. Vail housing costs 397% more than the average; Glenwood Springs, 215.7% more; Steamboat Springs, 257% more; and Telluride 391% more. That’s to be expected in communities that provide second homes for wealthy consumers who fly in and out from around the globe.

As the tourism economy spreads to neighboring towns, workers find themselves commuting farther and farther to find basic shelter. The housing cost in Edwards — 11 miles east of Vail — exceeds the national average by 438.4%.

Low-wage employees in Vail often commute 80 miles round trip, or more, to live in mobile homes in Gypsum and other places far from their jobs. Local affordable housing initiatives have helped a fortunate few but not most.

Colorado needs tourists and the industry needs workers. Yet, economic forces prevent restaurants and hotels from paying the wages required to rent or buy in markets with housing costs beyond the universe of normal. Average tourists simply cannot pay $100 for a cheeseburger or $1,000 a night for a midgrade hotel room.

Given this socioeconomic dilemma, we hoped Initiative 108 might help more Colorado tourism workers live closer to their jobs. Called the Make Colorado Affordable Act, the November ballot measure proposes diverting 0.1% of the general fund into a state affordable housing program.

The state would fund this by dipping into future TABOR refunds, such as the $750 in direct payments each taxpayer received this year by mandate of the Colorado Constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. By 2024, the proposed TABOR retention would generate about $300 million for the fund.

That massive diversion of taxpayer earnings must ease the burdens of tourism workers, or it’s not a good plan. Sadly, it would do no such thing.

To continue reading this editorial, click (HERE) to go to the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Jul 22

Affordable housing program will cut into your TABOR refunds

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Affordable housing program will cut into your TABOR refunds

By Natalie Menten

Guest Commentary

The state government has taken more taxes from you than we allow it to have, and it should rebate that over-collection back to you. That money coming back to all taxpayers is now in jeopardy. We should be alarmed at the potential waste.

Colorado voters’ dissatisfaction with government growing beyond its means led to the passage of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). This constitutional amendment requires voter approval for tax increases and debt. It also limits how fast government can grow. The formula for automatic tax increases is the prior year’s budget plus adjustment for inflation and population growth.

When government collects taxes above the limit, it must refund the surplus. Later this year, each taxpayer will get a $750 TABOR rebate from the state. The economic outlook predicts rebates for the next several years.

Two statewide ballot measures in November claim they don’t raise taxes, but that’s just not true. Funding for new programs comes from our future TABOR rebates. If we don’t get all those rebates back, that’s effectively a higher tax rate and clearly a tax hike.

Click the link below to continue reading this article at the Denver Post.

 

Opinion: Statewide affordable housing program will cut into your TABOR refunds