MESA COUNTY, Colo. — If democracy is not enough incentive to vote, maybe $122 will help.
Mesa County is one of a handful of counties that still has to give money back to residents when it collects too much. That's because of TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
Normally, that money is returned through reduced property taxes.
This year, Mesa County commissioners voted to give the refund back to every person registered to vote in the county by Aug. 1.
"This gets the most people the absolute most amount of money possible than any other way we return it," Republican Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis said.
Davis and the other two commissioners voted this month to refund the money based on the voter registration database.
This county refund is not the same as the statewide TABOR refund. That statewide refund of $750 for an individual and $1,500 for joint filers will be mailed to Coloradans who filed a state tax return by June 30.
This county refund is because the county collected more money than TABOR allows the county to keep.
"The main three are your gas tax, your sales tax and your property tax," Davis said.
The TABOR amendment in the Colorado Constitution does not specify how the money needs to be refunded.
Typically, property owners get a property tax reduction.
"It never sat well with me just to return all the revenue via a property tax mill levy holiday," Davis said. "We would only be returning it to about 50,000 residents who own property in Mesa County rather than to 104,000, approximately, that are registered to vote."
The county estimates that the refund will be about $122.
"I want to keep the money here, local. And I want the people who are paying those taxes, directly or indirectly, to keep it here," Davis said.
He said that 23 of the county's top 25 property taxpayers live outside of Mesa County.
Giving the refund via property tax reductions would only benefit those who own property.
"That doesn't include our low-income area in Clifton, who most of them rent property," Davis said. "They don't own property, so they're not able to get in on that return, although they were definitely involved in paying it."
Mesa is one of 13 counties (Arapahoe, Broomfield, Delta, El Paso, Elbert, Gilpin, Jefferson, Mesa, Montrose, Park, Pueblo, Routt and Weld) where localized refunds can still occur.
Voters in the other 51 counties have previously voted to allow the counties they live in to keep the overage. Those counties are Adams, Alamosa, Archuleta, Baca, Bent, Boulder, Chaffee, Cheyenne, Clear Creek, Conejos, Costilla, Crowley, Custer, Denver, Dolores, Douglas, Eagle, Fremont, Garfield, Grand, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Huerfano, Jackson, Kiowa, Kit Carson, La Plata, Lake, Larimer, Las Animas, Lincoln, Logan, Mineral, Moffat, Montezuma, Morgan, Otero, Ouray, Phillips, Pitkin, Prowers, Rio Blanco, Rio Grande, Saguache, San Juan, San Miguel, Sedgwick, Summit, Teller, Washington and Yuma.
"There's no perfect system, but we believe this is as close as we're going to get to perfect," Davis said.
For checks that bounce back to the county, or for people who are registered as homeless, which is allowed, those checks will be sent to the state treasurer and become part of the Great Colorado Payback.
According to the state, unclaimed property through the Great Colorado Payback includes, "abandoned financial assets such as stocks and dividends, mutual funds, checking and savings accounts, unpaid wages, securities, life insurance payouts, uncashed checks that are without activity for a certain period of time, as well as the contents of safe deposit boxes for which the rent has been expired for at least five (5) years."
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