Category Archives: TABOR Refunds

Jan 03

Group backed by prominent Colorado leaders weighs TABOR overhaul

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A third measure considered would allow unaffiliated voters to play a bigger role in primaries.

By John Frank
The Denver Post

An organization backed by prominent Colorado leaders is moving toward ballot initiatives in 2016 to roll back the state’s TABOR spending caps and make it harder to amend the constitution.

A possible third ballot question from Building a Better Colorado may allow the state’s 1.3 million unaffiliated voters to play a larger role in selecting candidates at the political primary level.

The bipartisan organization tested support for the issues in a December statewide poll and recently began drafting ballot language for the potential initiatives as it prepares to conclude a five-month listening tour in January.

“I think people recognize that there’s a problem that needs to be dealt with … and therefore, there is more enthusiasm for a solution,” said Reeves Brown, the project’s director.

The move to eliminate the inflation-plus-population revenue limit in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rightslikely would include a provision to direct surplus money that would have gone to taxpayer refunds to certain priority areas, rather than give state lawmakers free reign to spend it.

Click here to read the rest of the story:

Jan 03

Colorado taxpayers will get a TABOR gift in 2016

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Every Colorado income taxpayer will get a gift from TABOR this tax season, even if it’s the smallest of the projected refunds – $21 for a single filer.

But the working poor will get an extra boost from the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in 2016 because the state took in enough revenue last fiscal year to trigger a Colorado version of a federal tax credit. Almost 400,000 Coloradans will receive an average of $217 as part of their income tax return for the 2015 tax year – 10 percent of their federal Earned Income Tax Credit.

“These are people who are working. They are employed, they earn money but they aren’t making enough to get by,” said Tim Hoover, communications director for the Colorado Fiscal Institute. “A lot of them are working two or even three jobs. These are people who really need a little bit of extra boost in their paychecks.”

Hoover said many economists – both Republicans and Democrats – are advocates of the federal program, which has been among “the biggest and most successful anti-poverty programs this country has ever seen.” Continue reading →

Dec 27

Important questions about TABOR and their answers, part one

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James Redmond
jredmond@greeleytribune.com

Colorado’s unique tax law — the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR — will likely become a point of conversation and contention during much of 2016 in both the legislative session and at the ballot box.

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s budget request attributed some of the need for millions of dollars in cuts to the constitutional amendment that is seen by some as too restrictive a way to govern Colorado’s spending.

Movement is already afoot to make change. As an example, a nonpartisan group of state leaders called Building a Better Colorado has been traveling Colorado this year to find consensus on a possible ballot initiative in November to change parts of TABOR.

In addition, state Democrat lawmakers have said they plan to bring back last year’s failed hospital provider fee bill, a potential work-around TABOR to create wiggle room in the state’s budget. The hospital provider fee, which is assessed on hospitals to help pay for indigent health care, has raised so much money that it has bolstered state budgets past TABOR limits, requiring the state to issue taxpayer refunds. Continue reading →

Dec 22

Colorado Schools To Get Unexpected $159M Funding Boost

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The Colorado State Capitol.

(Hart Van Denburg/CPR News)

Lawmakers will have difficult decisions to make on school funding issues when they tackle the budget this coming legislative session.Members of the Joint Budget Committee on Monday received year-end economic forecasts from state budget staffers. One of the key takeaways from their reports was an adjustment to school enrollment and local tax revenue numbers, which will free up $159 million more in school funding than was previously expected.

Statewide pupil enrollment turned out to be lower than what was projected earlier this year. And the share local communities contribute to school funding was greater than what had been anticipated.

“At the end of the day, I’m certainly hopeful that the news today is that we can invest more in our schools,” said Rep. Millie Hamner, D-Dillon, who chairs the Joint Budget Committee.

Continue reading →

Nov 11

Under the Dome: Tough budget work about to begin

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bob rankin

Rep. Bob Rankin

After a week of great fall weather, it was snowing hard at my house the last two mornings. Summer was way too short. Joyce and I go back to Denver this week and start activity that will be nonstop through next May. But we’re not complaining. It’s an honor to represent Northwest Colorado in the Legislature, and we look forward to what’s coming.

The six-person Joint Budget Committee (JBC), of which I’m a member, starts hearings Thursday. We’ll be grinding through the performance measures, organization and budgets of 22 state government departments. Our wonderful nonpartisan staff members spend all year analyzing every aspect of all the departments in detail and then, in their first presentation, shovels it to us in a few hours. They seem to have a sincere belief that we can absorb so much information and data. The committee asks a lot of questions, and the department comes back another day and answers our questions. We put together a balanced budget by March and present it to both houses of the Legislature.

The JBC starts with a budget recommendation from the governor that is synthesized from department inputs and revenue forecasts. This year looks to be problematic, and I expect a tumultuous process to get to our March budget. To start with, the forecasts (they will change twice before March) indicate a $160 million shortfall for the current fiscal year that ends in July. The recommendation is that we take this sum from our 6.5 percent reserve and replace the reserve next year. Continue reading →

Oct 12

The attacks on TABOR continue

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October 11, 2015

By Amy K. Frantz , Toledo Chronicle, Tama News-Herald

Do Legislators have a Constitutional right to impose taxes on citizens and to deny citizens any veto power over those actions? A group of politicians in Colorado seems to think so, and are continuing their quest to overturn the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, from the Colorado State Constitution.

In Colorado, citizens are permitted to place measures on the ballot by initiative petition, and in 1992 the TABOR Constitutional Amendment was adopted by Colorado voters. TABOR requires majority voter approval to increase tax rates, to take on new debt, or to increase spending more than the rate of inflation plus state population growth.

In the original provisions of TABOR, any revenue collected in excess of the spending limit, plus an emergency relief fund of 3 percent of fiscal year spending, had to be returned to the taxpayers in the form of rebates. However, in 2005 Colorado voters approved a measure to forego the rebates for five years, following a scare campaign conducted by the state’s big spenders.

Continue reading →

Oct 11

YES: It’s what voters wanted

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Employee Nikki Desiderio explains different marijuana products to customers at the Helping Hand recreational marijuana store in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso,Employee Nikki Desiderio explains different marijuana products to customers at the Helping Hand recreational marijuana store in Boulder. (Jeremy Papasso, Daily Camera)

Opinion

YES: It’s what voters wanted

Proposition BB, the only statewide issue in Colorado’s elections this November, asks voters to “allow the state to retain and spend $66.1 million, which has already been collected, rather than refund it to taxpayers.”

Supporters of limited and cost-effective government understand the importance of reminding politicians and bureaucrats whose money they’re spending. Refunds of tax revenue are perhaps the single most-effective way of doing so. However, Proposition BB relates specifically to the refund of excise and sales taxes on marijuana, taxes approved by Colorado voters in 2013 through Proposition AA as required by the 2012 passage of Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado.

If BB were to fail, the functional impact would be for the state not to have collected any of the voter-approved 15 percent state excise tax or 10 percent state sales tax on retail (non-medical) marijuana sales.

Two key points, as explained by the Legislative Council staff:

To continue reading this story, click this link: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_28945795/yes-its-what-voters-wanted

 

Oct 06

TABOR plans for years of taxpayer refunds

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TABOR plans for years of taxpayer refunds

By Staff
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Under the 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, state and local governments are limited on how much they can grow their budgets.

Under the amendment, those year-over-year budget growths are based on a complicated formula subject to population growth and inflation.

Tax revenues that exceed that cap must be refunded to taxpayers, and that’s done depending on just how much revenue has exceeded the limit.

State economists say revenues from last year’s fiscal year, which ended June 30, resulted in a surplus of about $153.6 million. That means taxpayers will see a refund when they file their income tax returns next year, which is expected to average between $15 and $20 for individual filers.

Projections for the next two fiscal years are expected to be even higher: $252.5 million for the current fiscal year, which would be refunded with 2017 tax returns, and $352 million for the year after that.

If the hospital provider fee idea is approved during the next legislative session, which begins in January, it would eliminate the 2017 and 2018 refunds, but not the one planned for next year.

The fee, which is used to fund expanded Medicaid coverage, is collected from hospitals. But because it is counted as revenue for the state, it puts the state in a situation where the TABOR revenue cap is exceeded, triggering a mandatory refund. And that has the effect of cutting into funding for other state services, such as transportation and education.

Source: Colorado Legislative Council

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/tabor-plans-for-years-of-taxpayer-refunds

Oct 06

Lawmakers struggle with the politics of state’s budget

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Lawmakers struggle with the politics of state’s budget

100415_State_finances

By Charles Ashby
Saturday, October 3, 2015

Health care advocates like it. So do crusaders of more funding for transportation and education.

Some Colorado lawmakers believe they can fix the state’s most immediate budget issues to meet those needs by making what, on the surface, appears to be an innocuous change in how the state accounts for a fee on hospitals to fund health programs for the poor.

What they want is to take that charge — called the hospital provider fee — out from under the revenue caps mandated by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights and call that program a standalone government enterprise, something allowed for under the 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment that limits how much money the state can collect.

Doing so isn’t as easy as all that, however, because it would negate any TABOR refunds for years to come, turning the issue into more of a political question than one of policy.

REFUND, OR NO REFUND?

Some Republicans inside the statehouse say they have committed to taxpayers that they will refund money when state revenues exceed TABOR limits, something that will happen starting next year. Continue reading →

Oct 03

Political diatribe

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We saw this on Facebook:

Warning: Political diatribe to follow….

Love it when our state government tries to raise our taxes via a ballot initiative in a non election year. (insert sarcasm font)

This November 3, 2015, Colorado has an election in which the only issue is Prop BB, which states “allow the state to retain and spend 66.1 million, which has already been collected, rather than refund it to taxpayers”. as, note, is required by Colorado state law.

Hell no. I don’t care if my refund is only $16. It is my $16 to decide what to do with, not some wasteful government bureaucracy’s. They have enough money. If they did actually not, they would not be afraid to put this prop thru during an actual election year when people are paying attention.

If you live in Colorado, this November please vote on this. Either for or against is up to you of course, but do not let this issue be decided by an unrepresentative minority.

Thanks.

end political diatribe: