Voters can complete the property tax cutting job in November | OPINION

Colorado’s soaring property taxes dominated discussions during this year’s legislative session. We worked hard and made significant progress on this issue, and voters can complete the job in November by cutting and capping property taxes statewide. 

As I met with residents in Monument and around my district, I have continually heard about the effect of unsustainable property tax increases that have reached 30% or higher. Families have shared the deep difficulty of factoring this heavier tax burden into their household budgets, which have already been rocked by inflation. 

The community sentiment has provided a clear direction: cut our taxes and ease this burden. 

There is good news to report. 

After deep and lengthy negotiations, Republicans in the legislature were successful in improving property tax legislation. The bipartisan bill, passed in the session’s waning hours, provided more than $1 billion in tax relief that could result in several hundred dollars annually for homeowners. It also changed the assessment formulas for school districts and local governments and backfills revenue losses at the local level.

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Without question, Senate Bill 233, which the governor signed into law, was a good down payment on the local tax relief my community, and taxpayers across the state, are demanding. I supported this legislation, recognizing a first tax cutting step is a step in the right direction. 

Equally important, we conservatives worked hard to make sure this bill was not a rerun of past Democrat-dominated plans that focused on the needs of tax spenders at the State Capitol, and not on the struggles of taxpayers. 

We could not waste our time repeating last year’s massive mistake that became the fatally flawed Proposition HH. With a straight face, HH advocates tried to sell voters on the idea that taking your TABOR refund and then using it to reduce your own property tax bill is a tax cut. 

They put it on the ballot anyway, launching an expensive campaign to tell voters a massive tax increase was a tax cut.   

Proposition HH was rejected with nearly 60% of the vote. 

That defeat clearly stung our liberal colleagues. That’s one reason why Republicans were able to bring some common-sense fiscal conservatism to this year’s property tax legislation.  

Also looming over the discussions were the simple, solid ballot proposals offered by Advance Colorado. This pro-taxpayer plan, called “The Citizens’ Tax Cut,” takes this year’s legislation to the next level, and I strongly endorse it.

Here’s why this plan can and should earn voters’ support.

It cuts property taxes back to 2022 levels, before the substantial increases in property valuations hit. It provides the kind of deep, permanent relief my constituents want. 

The second part caps future increases at 4%, which ensures local governments and school districts get significant revenue boosts each year but stops future tax spikes. If local entities want to exceed that cap, they cannot do that on their own. They must get a vote of the people. 

I have found this provision of TABOR — asking Coloradans for their permission before the government can take more of their money — has been key to preventing our state from becoming the tax-raising havens we see in other liberal-dominated states. This plan would bring that same, very popular TABOR provision to property taxation.

The Citizens’ Tax Cut also protects revenue for local schools and other local services such as fire, police, public libraries and more by requiring the state to take some of the tax money from its growing $40 billion budget and send it back to the local level. Putting those dollars to work in our area, where the benefits are apparent and measurable, is better use than trusting those funds to state bureaucrats. 

This year proved we could pass pro-taxpayer legislation at the State Capitol and then trust the voters to complete the tax cutting job. Cutting and capping property taxes through the Citizens’ Tax Cut is the right next step for Colorado, and I will be urging my constituents to support it on the November ballot.

Republican Don Wilson of Monument represents District 20 in the Colorado House, which includes a portion of unincporporated El Paso County and the communities of the Air Force Academy, Black Forest, Gleneagle, Monument, Palmer Lake and Woodmoor.