The sponsor of a breakthrough Republican plan to gradually phase out the state's notorious policy of taxing business equipment is vowing to carry on the fight after his bipartisan bill was downsized .
In what has turned into a case of so-near-yet-so-far, Douglas County Republican Sen. Mark Scheffel's Senate Bill 85 has come closer than any previous effort in memory to elminating Colorado's oft-criticized business personal-property tax, long blamed for putting the chill on job creation and business investment statewide.
With bipartisan backing, including from Denver Democrat Senate President Peter Groff, the talk around the Capitol as recently as last week was that the bill's prospects were bright. Yet, after winning tentative approval from the full Senate, the bill ran into renewed opposition from county governments, which balked at the dip in tax revenue they would experience under Scheffel's plan.
As a result, the Senate stamped its final approval on the bill earlier this week, but only after a committee had slimmed it down into a measure creating a task force to study elminating the tax. Scheffel told colleagues that if they do not act soon to nix the tax, the general public probably will, through a ballot initiative.
He also said today that the issue won't go away--and that he will help see to that.
"We finally had some momentum on this crucial issue, and I'm not going to let it slow down," Scheffel said.
"I look forward to working with the panel that will study this issue," he said. "But in any event, I'm going to bring this issue back here."
Scheffel's bill started out with bipartisan sponsorship--Broomfield Republican Shawn Mitchell as well as Aurora Democrat Suzanne Williams had signed on in the Senate as co-sponsors--and Scheffel has attributed the bill's progress in the upper chamber to the support of key members of the ruling party, especially Groff. The proposal is being sponsored in the House by Republican Reps. Kent Lambert, of Colorado Springs, Frank McNulty, of Highlands Ranch, and Kevin Priola, of Henderson.
SB 85 in its earlier form would have phased out the business personal-property tax over a 40-year period, beginning in 2011--allowing extra time, Scheffel says, for the state and especially local governments to adjust to the decrease in tax revenue they will experience. The tax, which is set by the state, is assessed by counties and other local governments on business equipment ranging from oil-drilling rigs to computers to desks and chairs.
It long has been criticized by economists and business owners as a disincentive to businesses seeking to expand their operations or seeking to open shop in Colorado.
Scheffel's drive to rid the state of the tax was cheered on by business-community heavyweights such as the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.
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Doulgas County Republican Mark Scheffel has vowed to keep fighting for the phase out of the much-reviled tax on business equipment. |
