After working to undermine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights for decades, Democrats now sing a different tune, embracing the voter-approved system’s granting of refunds to Coloradans.

Indeed, Democrats, who pushed through legislation to send next year’s tax refund this month instead, are also no longer avoiding the “T” word.

Under that legislation, the early TABOR refund checks – dubbed as the “Colorado CashBack” – that 3.1 million Coloradans will get are now out in the mail. Officials expect the money will be in most taxpayers’ mailboxes within the next week.

Gov. Jared Polis, joined by Democratic lawmakers and state officials, held a third press conference in as many months to tout the Colorado CashBack. On Wednesday, they said most Coloradans will get the check – $750 check for individuals and $1,500 for joint filers – no later than the end of August.

Should the check not show up, the Department of Revenue has set up a call center for people to ask questions — 303-951-4996 — that will be staffed beginning Thursday. However, Mark Ferrandino, the agency’s executive director, asked people to wait until the end of the month before inquiring about the status of their checks.

Ferrandino also pointed out that a small percentage of taxpayers – between 1% and 2% – may have their refunds intercepted to pay for back child support, for example. 

Even people who didn’t owe state income taxes in 2021 are eligible for the refund. Coloradans must file a state income tax return by Oct. 17 in order to receive the check. For those late filers, the money will arrive sometime in January.

Addressing questions on his previous reluctance to refer to the CashBack as an early TABOR refund, Polis said Colorado’s strong economic recovery from the pandemic is responsible for the surplus dollars and that, due to inflation and other budgetary pressures, Coloradans need that money now, instead of waiting until next April.

“It’s your money,” he said.

Rep. Tony Exum, D-Colorado Springs, one of the sponsors of Senate Bill 233, said people don’t care about how the TABOR refund mechanisms work.

“They just want to see the checks,” he said. “There’s no reason for the government to hold onto your money when they don’t have to.”

What people value is the amount, Polis said.

“What matters is getting money back rather than the government sitting on it for a year,” he said. 

Republicans outside the Capitol refer to the $750 check as an election-year stunt.

“Don’t be fooled when your TABOR refund check hits your mailbox later this month,” Michael Fields of Advance Colorado said Wednesday. “Remember liberal legislators tried to take them away in 2019. Governor Polis and Democratic lawmakers want you to think it’s some kind of gift from them. But really, this is just an election year gimmick to try to get your vote.”

GOP gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl called it “the height of hypocrisy.”

“Polis claims this money will ‘help Colorado families afford rising prices and gas.’ What would actually help hardworking Coloradans is energy policies that do not crush our oil and gas industry and send gas and supply prices higher, fewer taxes like Polis’ impending gas tax, and fewer regulations that allow our small businesses to thrive,” she said.

Democrats have railed against TABOR for most of its 30-year history, including filing a lawsuit filed in 2011 that was finally abandoned by the Democratic plaintiffs in March when they chose not to appeal a 10th Circuit Court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2019, Polis and Democratic lawmakers also pushed for a ballot measure – Proposition CC – that would have allowed the state to retain surplus TABOR dollars instead of refunding it to taxpayers. While voters have over the decades approved similar mechanisms for school districts, counties and municipal governments, known as de-Brucing, they weren’t ready to part with state TABOR refunds and rejected the measure by 7 percentage points.

There are normally three ways TABOR dollars are returned to taxpayers:

• through a reduction in property taxes for seniors and veterans, known as the homestead exemption; 
• through a temporary reduction in the state’s 4.55% income tax; and, 
• through a complicated six-tiered sales tax refund, applied as a tax credit when income tax returns are filed.

The Colorado CashBack uses a fourth mechanism – a one-time only refund that is sending the same amount of money to all taxpayers regardless of income. 

During the 2022 session, Democratic lawmakers sponsored SB 233, which created the temporary fourth mechanism, to send out $3.56 billion in surplus TABOR revenues. Had SB 233 not passed, most of the refund would have gone back to taxpayers through the sales tax mechanism, which is income-based. 

The bill passed with four Republican “yes” votes in the state Senate, while 13 Republicans supported it in the House, in addition to all Democrats.

According to an updated fiscal analysis for SB 233, the early TABOR refund will send out about $2.7 billion of the available surplus. The rest will be refunded next year during the tax filing season and in accordance with the other TABOR refund mechanisms.

For more information, Coloradocashback.com.