It’s a familiar election-time theme: Colorado voters are alternately sweet-talked and browbeaten to let the state government keep their surplus tax dollars. Unless their permission is granted at the ballot box, any excess revenue – collected over and above the rates of inflation plus population growth – has to be refunded under the state constitution.

The pleas for more of the public’s money always include a pitch for covering some critical need or another that the legislature somehow neglected to fund. Voters are bombarded with advertising in a big-money campaign blitz exhorting them to pony up.

And yet, more often than not, they turn thumbs down. That’s what happened in last month’s election, when voters rejected Proposition HH by a walloping 18-point margin. It would have let the state keep surplus revenue to grow funding for schools and other programs. Outrageously, HH even would have used excess revenue to pay for the paltry property-tax relief promised in the very same proposal. It was an easy no.

So, why put Colorado voters through that ritual? Especially when they’re unlikely to go along, anyway?

A new study released on Friday by the Denver-based Independence Institute reminds us there’s an easier way: Just cut Colorado’s income tax. That would offset future excess revenue before the state could collect it.

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Voters did just that on their own, on the 2022 statewide ballot. They lowered the state income tax from 4.55% to 4.40%. But as Colorado’s economic growth exceeds even its rapid increase in population, surpluses continue to accumulate.

As the Independence Institute report points out, state economists forecast a $1.7 billion TABOR surplus this fiscal year. Independence found that surplus could “buy down” the income tax rate further, to 3.81%, with no impact on the current state budget or state spending.

At the very least, another income tax cut is warranted on the order of that proposed by Independence.

And there’s no need to make citizens go through the drill of floating their own tax cut. That’s a costly undertaking when considering the expense of circulating petitions for a statewide citizens initiative.

Instead, the legislature itself ought to refer a tax cut to the ballot. It can do so simply by passing a bill in the coming session. It won’t cost a dime, and it would give taxpayers a much-deserved windfall in these inflationary times.

The legislature’s Democratic majority would find itself in good company, too. Their own party’s standard bearer, Gov. Jared Polis, is on record for eliminating the state income tax altogether.

As Independence noted, Polis reiterated that view just this week in a commentary he and celebrated economist Arthur Laffer, Polis’ close friend, penned for the conservative National Review.

The two write, “If there is an excess in tax revenues above population growth and inflation, as defined by TABOR, that means tax rates should have been lower but were not. The law serves as a signal that tax rates have been too high. The proper response to this signal is not to have it keep signaling, but to get the message and cut tax rates permanently.”

Exactly.

It would spare politicians the trouble of mounting more futile campaigns begging for extra cash that the public isn’t going to let them keep, anyway. It also would ensure the state doesn’t play favorites when it inevitably has to give back the money; no special-interest tax breaks pushing a political agenda. Just a fair, across-the-board tax cut.

Lawmakers, how about it?

Denver Gazette Editorial Board