The members of the TABOR Committee certainly were glad that both the trial court and the Colorado Supreme Court acted to preserve this piece of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights : (https://aboutbtax.com/bjrH).  We have thought for years that courts have been too lenient in allowing the weakening of TABOR, and so strongly endorse this defense of the constitution.

The City of Lakewood tried to wiggle past this new tax without prior voter approval by expanding the reach of a limited and old telecommunications tax.  That the judicial system confirmed that new technologies must be treated as such in order to be taxed and therefore require voter approval, is an excellent protection for the citizens of our state.  The application of this understanding, that newly developed inventions cannot have old taxes extended to them, but must first ask the voters, is an important provision going forward that should cover a host of new ideas and innovations.  The ruling also somewhat limits the damage done in the rulings for the TABOR Foundation vs. RTD case, in which taxes imposed on items never taxed before without a vote were allowed by the courts.

We were also thankful that the justices on the Supreme Court all understood and applied the plain meaning of TABOR and released the Opinion unanimously.

An issue that we wish would have been revisited was argued by the City to allow the new taxes because the taxes raised were too small to be relevant.  It should be emphasized that such an argument always should be seen as nugatory, because TABOR has no de minimis language anywhere in its constitutional section.  In fact, the opposite applies.  Any tax increase ballot must conform to specific language that forecasts the amount to be raised.  If the receipts come in higher than the projection, “[T]he excess shall be refunded” and the tax rate adjusted downward to meet the limits (paragraph 7(d)).  No exception is mentioned in the provision.  In the RTD case mentioned above, the Supreme Court then legislated the de minimis provision into TABOR, creating it out of whole cloth.

Penn Pfiffner
TABOR Committee Chairman