Douglas Bruce, the author of the Taxpayer s Bill of Rights, in 2012 filed an objection to Amendment 64. (Denver Post file)
Tradition accepts June 15, 1215, as the start of limited government in Anglo-American law. Magna Carta (“the great charter’) was signed under duress by King John. John was the brother and successor to Richard the Lion Heart, whose loyal subjects included that tax rebel, Robin Hood. King John was known for his predatory and avaricious taxation.
Monarchs proclaimed the divine right of kings, asserting their absolute power came directly from God. English barons rejected King John’s tax tyrannies and other autocratic acts. Magna Carta ordained that even a king must honor the law. He could no longer summarily jail or execute any one without due process of law. Taxes would be limited; some would require baronial consent. A council of 25 barons could restrain the king’s illegal actions by seizing his lands and castles until he obeyed the law.
Magna Carta has a turbulent legacy. Over later centuries, it was rejected, affirmed, and revised. It has survived to be idealized as the first formal adoption of the Rule of Law.
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DENVER—For the third time since 2012, Colorado voters will decide a ballot question on the sales of recreational marijuana.
This year, voters will be asked to prevent a refund of the first year’s marijuana taxes that has been triggered by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) in the state constitution.
VOTE in the 9NEWS Morning poll: Colorado voters will decide in November if the State will keep an estimated $58 million in marijuana revenue. Should the state, keep it or return it? Vote below or click here:
Even though the expected $58 million raised by taxing pot in the first fiscal year of sales is roughly $10 million lower than predicted, TABOR requires a refund of the tax because state economists underestimated the overall size of today’s state budget back in 2013.
This requirement of TABOR only applies to newly-enacted taxes and also will require the state to switch the tax off one time only, resulting in a tax holiday on the special sales tax for pot this September.
Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) signed HB 1367 on Thursday, which will create a 2015 ballot question asking voters to block a marijuana tax refund. Continue reading →
“A new health care tax? Aguilar needs to give it a rest. She’s been pushing this unpopular idea for years. Coloradans need to know who is supporting this trojan horse proposal. The worst of the proposal is that it would exempt future revenues from this new tax from TABOR. A board would then be able to crank up taxes on Coloradans at their own whim.” – Jonathan Lockwood, executive director of Advancing Colorado.
While Initiative 20 proponents and the ColoradoCareYES campaign are ramping up their campaign to foist a trojan horse tax hike on Coloradans, supporter state Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver, has been rather quiet.
“A new health care tax? Aguilar needs to give it a rest. She’s been pushing this unpopular idea for years. Coloradans need to know who is supporting this trojan horse proposal. The worstof the proposal is that it would exempt future revenues from this new tax from TABOR. A board would then be able to crank up taxes on Coloradans at their own whim.” – Jonathan Lockwood, executive director of Advancing Colorado.
A serious effort is underway in Colorado to bypass the effective tax and spending controls imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) and permanently increase the size of the state government. TABOR limits how fast state tax revenues can grow by requiring that the state refund taxes collected over the limit to the taxpayers. Therefore, TABOR also, in effect, limits spending. This has kept the burden of state government low and has led to a stronger state economy.
But TABOR is under attack. Elected officials have placed Referendum C on the ballot for this fall, asking Colorado citizens to let the legislature keep (and spend) $3 billion in surplus taxes over TABOR limits instead of refunding those revenues to the taxpayers. As voters ponder this referendum, it is helpful to examine why TABOR was necessary and why it should be retained.
TABOR’s Background
Colorado voters passed TABOR in 1992 to end the undisciplined spending and tax increases of the 1980s, which increased the effective state income tax rate by 15 percent and the gasoline tax by 214 percent.[1] Chart 1 shows how effective TABOR has been in controlling spending. Before TABOR, state spending increased dramatically in relation to taxpayers’ ability to pay, even briefly surpassing the national average. After TABOR, the burden of government declined and Colorado’s competitiveness with the rest of the nation improved.
One of the fundamental reasons to enact revenue and spending limits is to protect taxpayers from constantly rising demands on their pocketbooks. This in turn fosters a better environment for economic growth. Government can still grow, but at a slow and predictable rate. Elected officials must then make honest, conscious decisions about where to direct resources across all state programs.
This means putting an end to the mentality of spending freely in the good years and raising taxes to cover those expenditures in the bad years-something that is as vital from a personal perspective for families trying to provide for their needs as it is from an economic perspective. TABOR has served that purpose well, effectively protecting both Colorado families and the state economy from the ill effects of increasing taxes and government spending.
Why Taxes and Government Spending Are Counterproductive
A new law will allow Colorado voters to know the fiscal impact of a ballot measure before petitions are circulated — a heavily debated effort that seemed doomed in the final hours of the recent legislative session.
The state had already been required to provide voters with cost-impact estimates of ballot measures, prior to an election. But House Bill 1057, which was signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday, accelerates that process so that voters will know a proposal’s cost before they are asked to sign a petition.
In addition to fiscal impact estimates appearing in voter Blue Book election guides, the new law requires that estimates of a measure’s impact on government revenues, spending, taxes and fiscal liabilities be summarized on initiative petitions.
“Shouldn’t we know what the fiscal impact is going to be if we are going to propose putting something into the Constitution?” said Rep. Lois Court, D-Denver, a bill sponsor.
Court said that fiscal notes are attached to bills before being considered by lawmakers and that the public should be afforded that same information. The Colorado Legislative Council makes those calculations for lawmakers and is also responsible for preparing fiscal impact statements for ballot initiatives.
House Dems pushing fee change to prevent future TABOR refunds | CPR
Democrats in Colorado’s state House are moving forward with an ambitious plan to hold onto hundreds of millions of dollars the state would otherwise have to send back to taxpayers.
Revenues are growing fast enough that the state will soon start sending out tax refunds as required by the Taxpayers Bills of Rights. But budget writers warn those refunds will make it a tough financial situation that much harder. K-12 schools and Medicaid are expected to consume most of the new money Colorado brings in over the next few years, leaving little left over for other areas, like higher education and transportation.
House Speaker Dickie Lee Hullinghorst believes she’s found a way around that squeeze. She wants to reclassify a major fee paid by hospitals in a way that makes it exempt from TABOR limits. That change would lower the total revenue amount covered by TABOR enough keep the state from having to pay refunds for years, giving lawmakers hundreds of millions more dollars to direct to state services.
TABOR: What it does and why it’s important – Journal Advocate
In 1992, Colorado voters did something no other state in the country had done: They amended our state constitution to include the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, commonly known as TABOR. This new constitutional amendment requires every tax increase to be approved by the voters and limits the amount of revenue the state can keep. While critics of TABOR claim such stringent restrictions have hampered Colorado’s economy, an examination of the amendment’s provisions reveals how it actually helps keep our taxes low and government lean, and is helping Colorado recover faster than many other states.
Rep. Jon Becker R-Fort Morgan
Perhaps the most widely-known provision of TABOR is the requirement that all tax increases be approved by a majority of Colorado voters. In any given year, the state legislature is faced with numerous budget decisions, but rather than simply allow the legislators to enact tax increases to fund projects as they see fit, voters must approve these increases. Think back to Amendment 66 in 2013, which called for a $1 billion tax increase for education. Citizens overwhelmingly defeated this measure, 66 to 34 percent, sending a message that an increase in school funding should come from existing resources and not new taxes. The result meant the legislature had to make some hard decisions, but since Amendment 66, we have directed more than an additional $200 million dollars of existing resources into K-12 education.
Colorado lawmakers begin a mad dash to the finish next week with more than a dozen significant bills in limbo and the session’s clock set to expire.
The final flurry before the May 6 adjournment is typical each session, but this year it is complicated by a divided legislature seeking elusive common ground on a wide range of issues and a series of late bills with huge implications.
The 2015 legislative session began with Gov. John Hickenlooper touting the state’s economic successes. It may end with him lamenting the economic problems that couldn’t be solved.
Last week, the governor sent lawmakers a letter, suggesting how they could resolve contradictory fiscal laws that limit the state’s ability to fund certain infrastructure priorities.
The problems? Not enough money for transportation projects, especially repairs to roads and bridges, with an estimated cost of $3.5 billion. And K-12 education is still almost $1 billion short of its Amendment 23-required levels. At the same time, the state is poised to start sending hundreds of millions of dollars back to residents through refunds required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).
In the letter, the governor laid the blame on two laws from 2009. On the revenue side is the hospital provider fee, which the governor criticizes for pushing state revenue above TABOR limits and forcing refunds. The fee is expected to bring in $532.3 million in this fiscal year. In 2015-16, that grows to $688.5 million, according to Hickenlooper’s letter.
The fee counts as cash fund revenue under TABOR, and wasn’t anticipated when revenue caps were set in 2007-08.
