The city government collects taxes and spends the tax money.

The amount of money the city government can spend is limited by TABOR.

If the city government takes in more tax money than it is allowed to spend, TABOR requires that the excess taxes be returned to the taxpayers.

But, the city government can keep the excess taxes if the voters approve (popularly called deBrucing).

The voters can approve a deBrucing limited to a few years, or;

The voters can approve a deBrucing that restricts spending to listed projects, or;

The voters can approve a permanent deBrucing.

There is no concept of reBrucing – putting controls back on the government.

Those who support deBrucing say that it is not a tax increase.

It’s not clear what term would be used to describe the situation where the city has collected more money than is owed and asks to keep it forever.
If it is not a “tax increase,” what do you call it?

On your ballots this November is issue 2A, which would permanently remove the TABOR revenue cap. We have heard the arguments put forth by various Council members during the Council meetings and concluded that none of those arguments made sense. Those arguments were…

The declining revenue argument goes like this, “sales tax revenues have gone down $1 million since (pick a year), therefore we need to de-TABOR.” This argument is flawed for two reasons.

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