Gov. John Hickenlooper pitched a fix Thursday to what some call Colorado’s “fiscal thicket,” a complex network of Constitutional Amendments – most notably the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights – and state laws that dictate how state government spends taxpayer dollars.

The plan – spelled out in a four-page letter to Democrat and Republican leaders in the General Assembly – hinges on the state keeping an estimated $316.6 million in fiscal year 2016-17 instead of paying it back to taxpayers through a TABOR refund.

That money would instead go to (and yes, this adds up to more than $316.6 million): $215 million for transportation projects, $50 million for common education; $20 million to repay local governments for the impact of oil and gas operations; and $75 million to pay back money borrowed from the Medicaid expansion and increased hospital provider fees.

Under the plan, lower income taxpayers could have their cake and eat it, too. They would receive a share of $85 million in a new state Earned Income Tax Credit.

Henry Sobanet, director of the Governor’s Office of State Planning and Budgeting, said there is enough time remaining this session to address an important question for future budgets.

“Are we sure that the structure we have is providing the resources that all the aspects of the state’s priorities need?” Sobanet asked. “This idea, these conversations have been kind of back and forth for many months, and so we felt it was a good time to try and see if there was some common ground around a vision for transportation, a vision for rebates, a vision for some extra resources for K-12 education.”

Under the plan, voters wouldn’t be asked for permission for the state to keep the increased revenue, a key tenet of TABOR. Continue reading →

State Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, readily admits that he is not a fan of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), a constitutional amendment restricting the spending of state tax revenues. In these last few weeks of the session’s duration, he will be introducing a bill in the Senate to allow the state to retain the revenues from marijuana tax income.

In an interview with Catherine Strode, Sen. Steadman says his bill will ask Coloradans to forego their TABOR tax refunds in order to put the Marijuana Tax income to good use across the state.

Sen. Pat Steadman

CS: Why are you bringing this bill?

PS: Voters legalized marijuana and said they wanted it taxed and regulated. Voters passed the Prop AA Marijuana Taxes but TABOR is making them vote twice. Otherwise, the entire first year collection will be lost to a TABOR refund. My bill gives voters the opportunity to reaffirm their desire to have marijuana taxed and to have those revenues put to good use.

CS: Is TABOR going away?

PS: As much as I would love to see TABOR go away, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. We’re still learning lessons. Look at the marijuana tax/TABOR problem this year, a brand new TABOR problem we never saw before. When will TABOR quit turning around and biting us on the behind? Hopefully, soon. But don’t be surprised when it happens again. If you look at the first 22 years of life under TABOR, most of the things the legislature has done to adjust to the TABOR Amendment, have been kicking the can down the road. Referendum C kicked the can down the road for five years. Some of the things that were done early on, in terms of creating enterprises for unemployment, or enterprises for higher education tuition, were ways to kick the can down the road. You might describe them as slowly chipping away at TABOR’s restrictions but most of those restrictions are still with us. Most of what you see us doing in the budget, or, this talk about the Hospital Provider Fee becoming an enterprise, are all ways for the legislature to kick the can down the road so we can live under TABOR a little bit longer. I think that’s going to be our ‘MO’ going forward. Small accommodations, chipping away in very surgical, discreet, little ways, doing what we can to live under the restrictions of TABOR. I don’t see anyone with the political fortitude leading the charge to take something to the voters to fix it.

CS: How is Medicaid expansion affecting the budget?

Continue reading →

By John Frank
The Denver Post

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27931783/governor-asks-lawmakers-overhaul-state-spending-tabor-refunds?source=infinite

Governor Hick’s budget problems caused by his reckless Medicaid expansion and corporate welfare.

Dave Kopel on Colorado Public TV

Published on Apr 17, 2015

Governor Hickenloopers recent letter sent to lawmakers urging them to change how Colorado collects revenue and offers refunds to taxpayers is the topic of discussion.

The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL

The Glitch in Colorado’s Weed Experiment

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD  APRIL 6, 2015

A marijuana dispensary in Boulder, Colo. Credit Matthew Staver for The New York Times

After Colorado voters legalized marijuana, they also approved heavily taxing it and using the money for school construction, law enforcement, drug education and other useful things. The arrangement made perfect sense.

But now the 15-month-old experiment has entered a phase that makes no sense at all. It’s the prospect that all this new marijuana revenue — an estimated $58 million in the current fiscal year — may have to be returned to the voters, because of a provision in the state’s Constitution that rigidly constrains taxes and spending. The provision is the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or Tabor, a complex set of rules that requires, among other things, voter approval of all new taxes and automatic refunds if tax revenues or spending exceed estimates given when tax questions are put to the voters.

As an April 1 report in The Times explained, Colorado’s tax revenues have recently surged, thanks in part to the booming construction, oil and gas industries, in addition to some $58 million from the marijuana taxes. But not only revenues but overall state spending this year are expected to end up higher than the state estimated back when the marijuana tax was on the ballot. Under Tabor — which some in Colorado have likened to a fiscal straitjacket or a statutory version of the crazed space computer HAL 9000 — the state is therefore required to refund the marijuana money. Continue reading →

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Some Denver business leaders are pushing a state budget fix that would ensure a boost in transportation funding and could help to increase education spending simply by moving the six-year-old hospital provider fee out of the general fund into what is know as “enterprise fund” status.

However, with the Colorado Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee set to introduce its proposed budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year on Friday, the idea has not gained enough traction yet even to be discussed formally by the committee.

And Democratic and Republican legislative leaders disagree on whether it should be considered, especially since that solution likely would eliminate any Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds to residents statewide in the near future.

However, the same bill says the transfer can be cut in half if TABOR refunds — which are required when state-government revenue grows above a certain cap — are between 1 and 3 percent of the general-fund budget. And they can go away altogether if TABOR refunds exceed 3 percent.

Right now, the TABOR refund is projected to be a little more than 1 percent, which means the $204 million that had been planned for transportation funding would sink to $102 million. Continue reading →

It has been almost 15 years, but hard-working Colorado taxpayers may be in for a TABOR refund in the near future.  The combination of an improving economy and tax receipts from the state’s nascent marijuana industry have created a surplus that must be refunded to Colorodans under the state constitution, unless a ballot measure calling for the funds to be retained and spent by the government is passed in a statewide vote.

Of course, there will be fierce resistance from Democratic lawmakers to refund a penny of the excess tax payments that was dropped into the states’ coffers.  It was not too long ago that the Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, Dickey Lee Hullinghorst,staked out her position on the issue, saying that “the people would be far better off if we invested that…” and went on to marginalize the refund by comparing it to “50 bucks to spend on a tank of gas or something.”

In case Speaker Hullinghorst has not been part of the middle class for a while, $50 is a lot of money to someone not making six figures.

Hullinghorst’s wild guesstimate of the figure is most likely wrong.  According to current estimates, the surplus tax collections will amount to somewhere between $70 million and $220 million during the 2015 fiscal year.  This would result in refunds between $15 – $89 per taxpayer, with lower-income people getting more.  There is also a possibility that some low earners will get an additional $230, according to a Denver Post story.

We have to ask – are Democrats really representing the middle and lower earners as they claim?  If they were, would TABOR refunds even be a question?

As an interesting side note, while TABOR is well-known in Colorado, relatively few states have a similar government spending limit mechanism in their constitutions.  The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) actually has a model bill that is based on Colorado’s TABOR amendment that lawmakers in other states can pick up, make minor changes to, and introduce in their own jurisdictions.  We would bet there are constituents in many states who would appreciate a cap on their legislature’s wanton spending.

http://coloradopeakpolitics.com/2015/03/26/return-to-owner-tabor-tax-rebates-may-be-coming-to-a-mailbox-near-you/