Bill lets state keep tax refunds

TABOR money instead would be spent on education and transportation

Colorado voters have rejected every statewide ballot question about raising taxes — even for education and transportation — in recent years, so a group of state lawmakers decided it was time to ask a different question.

They introduced two House bills Wednesday that, if passed, would ask voters in November whether they want to forgo certain tax refunds and direct the state to spend those dollars on public schools, transportation and higher education.

“We think it’s a common-sense first step to ask voters if we can keep the revenue they are already sending us and spend it on important state priorities,” said House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder. “We don’t think it is going to be a solution to long-term needs in transportation, K-12 or higher ed, but we think it’s a really good first step.”

Economic forecasts vary, so the amount this bill would designate varies from as little as $65 million to almost a billion dollars, Becker said.

Around the state Capitol, what Becker is asking for is known as “de-Brucing,” after Douglas Bruce, the man who wrote Colorado’s 1992 constitutional amendment known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. The amendment says state, county and even local school districts have to return all tax dollars they collect above an amount set by a formula that gets calculated each year using population plus inflation.

Becker and Sens. Lois Court, DDenver, and Kevin Priola, R-Henderson, think now is the time to ask voters statewide to do the same.

“TABOR says if you want to keep the extra money that comes in, then ask,” Court said. “This is exactly what this does. We are not changing TABOR one iota. We are not touching the language in the constitution.”

Because this isn’t a referral to voters on a constitutional question, she and the other sponsors only need a simple majority in the statehouse for it to pass. And voters also only have to approve the question by a simple majority. Constitutional changes have to receive 55 percent to pass.

Priola’s Republican colleagues were quick to condemn the proposal and characterize it as an “egregious” attempt to eliminate TABOR.

“It’s clear what’s happening here,” House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock, said in a statement. “Democrats can’t pay for all of their empty promises made in the last election, so now they want to permanently eliminate your tax refunds to pay for their expensive programs.”