Study: TABOR leads to inequities, unintended issues

"CSU study finds Colorado tax limits create unintended consequences in school funding"

http://www.thebrightonblade.com/content/tabor-leads-inequities-unintended-issues

COLORADO — More than 80 percent of Coloradans pay more in school property taxes than they would if voters had never enacted the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, according to a study by the Colorado Futures Center at Colorado State University and published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonpartisan think tank.

Tax and expenditure limits enacted as part of the 1992 TABOR voter initiative have led to inconsistent and unequal property tax burdens in Colorado, with state taxpayers increasingly subsidizing a handful of often-wealthy school districts, according to the research....

...Taxpayers in 74 school districts — representing 81 percent of the state’s population — now pay more in school property taxes than they would if the Taxpayer Bill of Rights were never enacted.

In most districts where property taxes have decreased, a greater share of school costs are now paid out of the state’s general fund.

Among the 21 school district with the lowest school property taxes, residential taxpayers have enjoyed property tax reductions from 59 percent to 97 percent since 1993, and nine are in the top quartile for household income in the state....

"As these results show, Colorado’s experience should serve as a cautionary tale for other states as they consider enacting tax and expenditure limitations,” Resnick said. “In many cases, Colorado’s property tax limits relied on simple formulas that failed to take into account the complex factors affecting school district financing, such as changing local economic conditions and volatile school enrollment. As a result, these limits have served mostly to redistribute — rather than reduce — Coloradans’ tax burden.”