{"id":40978,"date":"2022-04-25T16:15:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T22:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-dems-unveil-plan-to-advance-tabor-refund-checks\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:58:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:58:40","slug":"colorado-governor-dems-unveil-plan-to-advance-tabor-refund-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-dems-unveil-plan-to-advance-tabor-refund-checks\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado governor, Dems unveil plan to advance TABOR refund checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gov.
Gov. Jared Polis speaks before signing an abortion rights bill into law on April 4 in Denver. (Olivia Sun\/The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Coloradans would receive their tax refunds for the current fiscal year up to eight months early under a bill unveiled Monday by Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic state lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Individual taxpayers would receive $400 under the plan while families would get $800. The money would be sent out as soon as August \u2013 before the November 2022 election \u2013 instead of the normal timeline of spring 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of government sitting on the money, we want to make sure we get it back to people,\u201d Polis said at a news conference at the Capitol surrounded by Democratic lawmakers.<\/p>\n

The effort comes amid growing election-year pressure on the state\u2019s majority party over inflation and the economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very simple policy,\u201d Polis said. \u201cCheck your mailbox in late August early September.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the reality is the details of the plan are quite complicated.<\/p>\n

The changes would be made possible by a clause in the Taxpayer\u2019s Bill of Rights that lets the Legislature determine how to refund excess tax revenue to Coloradans.<\/p>\n

TABOR limits government growth and spending to inflation and population growth. Nonpartisan legislative staff members expect a $2 billion surplus over the TABOR cap this fiscal year, which ends June 30, and a $1.56 billion surplus next year. The Governor\u2019s Office of State Planning and Budgeting predicts a TABOR excess of $2.2 billion this year, and $2 billion and $1.3 billion in the next two years.<\/p>\n

The refund checks would account for about $1.4 billion of the expected surplus in the current fiscal year. The rest of the money would be refunded through an income tax reduction and an expansion of the homestead property tax exemptions for seniors and disabled veterans.<\/p>\n

If there is still money left over, it would be distributed through another round of smaller checks to Coloradans.<\/p>\n

The irony of the plan is that it\u2019s entirely made possible by TABOR, which Democrats generally loathe. Coloradans would have been refunded the money one way or another thanks to the 1992 amendment to the state constitution.<\/p>\n

Republicans have been hammering Polis and Democrats over the rising cost of living in Colorado. GOP candidates up and down the ballot have made criticizing Democrats over inflation, particularly gas prices, a cornerstone of their 2022 pitch.<\/p>\n

Polis and Democrats in the Legislature have already responded by offering a host of fee relief measures, including one that would delay for nine months the implementation starting in July of a new 2-cent-per-gallon gas fee. The fee was enacted by Polis and Democrats through the passage last year of a sweeping transportation funding bill.<\/p>\n

The governor denied on Monday that the plan is a response to political pressure facing Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to do with the economic pressure that the people of Colorado are facing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would make no sense just because this year happens to be an election year to delay these refunds. This is the summer when we\u2019re suffering from $4-per-gallon gas prices. This is the summer where the supply chain issues lead to higher grocery prices. So it\u2019s critical that we act as quickly as possible to get this out to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the governor framed the TABOR refund checks for the 2021-22 fiscal year being sent out in April 2023 as a delay, that is just the normal timeline for their distribution.<\/p>\n

Mark Ferrandino, a Polis appointee who leads the Colorado Department of Revenue, said the plan to advance TABOR refund checks will not carry over into future years.<\/p>\n

The way in which Democrats plan to distribute the TABOR refunds in advance would favor lower-income Coloradans. The money is normally handed out based on income level, with higher earners getting larger refunds. But the advance refunds will be released at a flat rate, meaning lower-income Coloradans will receive more money than they would have otherwise.<\/p>\n

Scott Wasserman, who leads the Bell Policy Center, a liberal-leaning fiscal policy nonprofit, said he is \u201cencouraged to see a more equitable distribution of the TABOR rebate this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cColoradans don\u2019t support the wealthiest among us getting tax cuts, and I hope this is the beginning of efforts to make tax code fairer and smarter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The refund checks would be distributed by mail and would be signed by Treasurer Dave Young, a Democrat up for re-election in November.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story that will be updated. <\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Individual taxpayers would receive $400 under the plan; families would get $800<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,29,265,1160],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-40978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics","tag-taxation"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84817,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40978\/revisions\/84817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40978"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=40978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}