Category Archives: TABOR Refunds

Mar 30

Speaker: Talks on proposal to eliminate TABOR refunds at a stalemate

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Speaker: Talks on proposal to eliminate TABOR refunds at a stalemate

Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst of Boulder was nominated as majority leader during the Colorado House of Representatives Democratic Caucus at the state Capitol in Denver, CO, Thursday November 8, 2012. Democrats took back the majority in the House after Tuesday’s election, and will have a 37-28 majority when the session opens in January. Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

DENVER – The speaker of the Colorado House said negotiations have reached a “stalemate” on a long-debated and highly anticipated proposal to retain more state revenue through an accounting change that would eliminate TABOR refunds in future years.

The prospects for the bills Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst introduced Monday are poor in the Republican-dominated Senate.

One of the bills reauthorizes a fee charged on hospital stays so that millions of dollars go into an enterprise fund that is exempt from the spending limits in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The other bill spends the revenue the state would retain if the first bill passes.

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Mar 29

Hospital provider fee bill introduced in Colorado Legislature — with Republican Senate sponsor

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Colorado House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst introduced her anticipated bill to turn the hospital provider fee into an enterprise fund Monday with two twists — a Republican sponsor in the Senate and a companion bill allocating general-fund money that would be freed up if the bill were to pass.

Created in 2009, the fee is assessed on hospitals for each night that a bed is filled with a patient, and the revenue is used to receive match funding from the federal government and to increase Medicaid eligibility for childless adults.

House Speaker-designee Dickey Lee Hullinghorst unpacking in her new office at the capitol.Enlarge

House Speaker-designee Dickey Lee Hullinghorst unpacking in her new office at the capitol.

KATHLEEN LAVINE, BUSINESS JOURNAL

It has generated billions of dollars in reimbursements for hospitals that treated previously uninsured patients with no capacity to pay bills, but because the revenue counts against the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap, it also pushes the state toward exceeding the cap and having to give taxpayers refunds with money that could otherwise have gone to areas such as education and transportation. Continue reading →

Mar 26

Colorado’s provider ‘fee’: Even the federal government knows its a tax

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March 25, 2016 12:22 PM· By Linda Gorman

In 2009, the Democrats controlling Colorado state government wanted more money. Among other things, they wanted to expand Medicaid. They needed to increase state revenues. Their problem was that the Colorado Constitution requires a vote on new state taxes and the U.S. was in the depths of a severe economic downturn.

icon_blog_noteState officials knew that a new tax would never be approved by a popular vote. To get around both the letter and the spirit of their constitutional duty, they simply labeled the provider tax a “fee” and imposed it. Fees do not require a vote.

Today that tax badly disguised as a fee is raising $688 million in additional revenues that is counted towards the total amount of tax revenue that the state is allowed to keep under the Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).

 

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Mar 25

Colorado budget bill eliminates TABOR refunds, slashes spending

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Hospitals and road construction take a hit, but budget writers warn it could have been far worse

(Denver Post file)

Facing a money crunch, Colorado lawmakers resorted to extraordinary feats to craft a $27 billion budget bill Thursday, eliminating a $59 million taxpayer refund, slashing $73 million of payments to hospitals and cutting $50 million for road construction.

Even then, budget writers needed to pull millions from other cash accounts and tap reserves to balance the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

But the moves prevented even deeper spending cuts to classrooms, college campuses and health care providers that Gov. John Hickenlooper proposed in his budget plan.

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Mar 20

Low state revenues may mean no TABOR refunds next year

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Low state revenues may mean no TABOR refunds next year

2016_Legislature_LOGOS

By Charles Ashby
Saturday, March 19, 2016

DENVER — State revenues have dropped off a bit, enough that it could prevent an automatic refund under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, state economists told lawmakers on Friday.

Projections for the next fiscal year are expected to be down by about $111 million, meaning the state likely won’t reach the revenue cap that automatically triggers a refund under TABOR as had been expected from the last forecast in December, the Colorado Legislature’s chief economist, Natalie Mullis, told members of the Joint Budget Committee.

“We did lower our expectations for general fund revenue,” Mullis said. “In December, we expected that general fund revenue would grow by 1.8 percent this year, which is actually negative if you adjust for population growth and inflation. It’s slowed down a little bit to 1.5 percent in this revenue forecast. That impacts the bottom line.”

In her forecast for the first quarter of 2016, Mullis said that the national and state economies expanded last year, but slowed somewhat in the second half of 2015. Continue reading →

Mar 20

Lower Colorado budget forecast renews TABOR fight

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Lower Colorado budget forecast renews TABOR fight

DENVER – The state will take in less money in 2016-17 than previously forecast by economists due in large part to the struggling global economy, but the roughly $90 million decrease in revenue, is a proverbial drop in Colorado’s $26 billion budget bucket.

Lawmakers will use the March forecast to set the fiscal year 2016-17 budget in the next week, but not much has changed from when the governor released his recommended budget in November. That is largely because lawmakers made mid-year adjustments to the 2015-16 budget to provide a budgeting cushion in case of a downturn.

Lawmakers on Friday received a forecast from Natalie Mullis, chief economist with the Legislative Council, and the governor’s budget office. This year the forecasts were extremely close.

“We did lower our expectations for general fund revenue,” Mullis said. “We already had expectations for slowed growth in revenue. In December we expected that general fund revenue would grow by 1.8 percent this year, which is actually negative if you adjust for population and inflation. It slowed down again a little bit, to 1.5 percent in this revenue forecast,”

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Mar 19

Colorado budget forecast renews TABOR fight

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By: Megan Schrader

March 18, 2016

 photo - Colorado State Capitol Building
Colorado State Capitol Building 

DENVER – The state will take in less money in 2016-17 than previously forecast by economists due in large part to the struggling global economy, but the roughly $90 million decrease in revenue, is a proverbial drop in Colorado’s $26 billion budget bucket.

Lawmakers will use the March forecast to set the fiscal year 2016-17 budget in the next week, but not much has changed from when the governor released his recommended budget in November. That is largely because lawmakers made mid-year adjustments to the 2015-16 budget to provide a budgeting cushion in case of a downturn.

Lawmakers on Friday received a forecast from Natalie Mullis, chief economist with the Legislative Council, and the governor’s budget office. This year the forecasts were extremely close.

“We did lower our expectations for general fund revenue,” Mullis said. “We already had expectations for slowed growth in revenue. In December we expected that general fund revenue would grow by 1.8 percent this year, which is actually negative if you adjust for population and inflation. It slowed down again a little bit, to 1.5 percent in this revenue forecast,”

In addition to the slowed economy, the budget will face pressure from an estimated $59.3 million that must be refunded to Colorado taxpayers because of revenue limits put in place by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. That tax return – what people would claim on their April 2017 income tax returns – is down from previous projections because revenue is lower.

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Mar 06

Section 20. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.(1) General provisions

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Section 20. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.(1) General provisions. This section takes effect December 31, 1992 or as stated. Its preferred interpretation shall reasonably restrain most the growth of government. All provisions are self-executing and severable and supersede conflicting state constitutional, state statutory, charter, or other state or local provisions. Other limits on district revenue, spending, and debt may be weakened only by future voter approval. Individual or class action enforcement suits may be filed and shall have the highest civil priority of resolution. Successful plaintiffs are allowed costs and reasonable attorney fees, but a district is not unless a suit against it be ruled frivolous. Revenue collected, kept, or spent illegally since four full fiscal years before a suit is filed shall be refunded with 10% annual simple interest from the initial conduct. Subject to judicial review, districts may use any reasonable method for refunds under this section, including temporary tax credits or rate reductions. Refunds need not be proportional when prior payments are impractical to identify or return. When annual district revenue is less than annual payments on general obligation bonds, pensions, and final court judgments, (4) (a) and (7) shall be suspended to provide for the deficiency.

(2) Term definitions. Within this section:

(a) “Ballot issue” means a non-recall petition or referred measure in an election.

(b) “District” means the state or any local government, excluding enterprises.

(c) “Emergency” excludes economic conditions, revenue shortfalls, or district salary or fringe benefit increases.

(d) “Enterprise” means a government-owned business authorized to issue its own revenue bonds and receiving under 10% of annual revenue in grants from all Colorado state and local governments combined. Continue reading →

Mar 06

TABOR is Article X Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution

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Section 20

Text of Section 20:The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights

(1) General provisions. This section takes effect December 31, 1992 or as stated. Its preferred interpretation shall reasonably restrain most the growth of government. All provisions are self-executing and severable and supersede conflicting state constitutional, state statutory, charter, or other state or local provisions. Other limits on district revenue, spending, and debt may be weakened only by future voter approval. Individual or class action enforcement suits may be filed and shall have the highest civil priority of resolution. Successful plaintiffs are allowed costs and reasonable attorney fees, but a district is not unless a suit against it be ruled frivolous. Revenue collected, kept, or spent illegally since four full fiscal years before a suit is filed shall be refunded with 10% annual simple interest from the initial conduct. Subject to judicial review, districts may use any reasonable method for refunds under this section, including temporary tax credits or rate reductions. Refunds need not be proportional when prior payments are impractical to identify or return. When annual district revenue is less than annual payments on general obligation bonds, pensions, and final court judgments, (4) (a) and (7) shall be suspended to provide for the deficiency.

(2) Term definitions. Within this section:

(a) “Ballot issue” means a non-recall petition or referred measure in an election.
(b) “District” means the state or any local government, excluding enterprises.
(c) “Emergency” excludes economic conditions, revenue shortfalls, or district salary or fringe benefit increases.
(d) “Enterprise” means a government-owned business authorized to issue its own revenue bonds and receiving under 10% of annual revenue in grants from all Colorado state and local governments combined.
(e) “Fiscal year spending” means all district expenditures and reserve increases except, as to both, those for refunds made in the current or next fiscal year or those from gifts, federal funds, collections for another government, pension contributions by employees and pension fund earnings, reserve transfers or expenditures, damage awards, or property sales.

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Mar 06

Yes, Colorado’s hospital fee plan is legal

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Yes, Colorado’s hospital fee plan is legal

Colorado legislature should reclassify hospital provider fee

By The Denver Post Editorial Board

POSTED:   03/05/2016 

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman.

Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman. (Denver Post file)

 

Democrats who had accused Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman of undue partisanship might have to rethink their thesis after her announcement last week that it is perfectly legal to adopt a budget manuever the governor has proposed and GOP lawmakers have denounced as a violation of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

Not so fast, Coffman said in effect to doubting lawmakers. Based on the language of the constitution and various court rulings, the state could indeed legally reclassify the hospital provider fee to free up $200 million in additional spending under TABOR, her legal analysis concluded.

“The debate over whether to create a hospital provider fee enterprise can now shift back to the General Assembly,” she added.

Unfortunately, leading Republicans in the assembly are still raising dubious legal objections to the plan.

 

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