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Our View: Proposition GG’s tax info table a clear win

Proposition GG may go down in history as the absolute easiest bipartisan choice on the midterm election ballot.

Coloradoans are asked to do big things in voting on tax changes. Would you like a table or graphic on your ballot, showing exactly how tax changes would impact you and your family? You have the right to know. And Proposition GG offers unbiased, transparent tax policy figures.

Proposition GG would amend Colorado Revised Statutes to require a tax information table to appear on petitions and ballots of citizen-initiated measures that change the income tax rate. No partisan spins. Just numbers.

As it is, when we vote on new tax measures, we see that cost on the ballot. What we don’t see are tax decreases or increases by income categories. Who pays how much. Something as simple as this income-category table empowers voters to better understand tax changes.

Who doesn’t love a tax cut? Yet, that tax cut will do away with something. Take a look at the sample, draft ballot table included. Here’s a hypothetical situation. If a tax cut eliminates something we count on at our children’s schools, for example, we might question that $56.25 in tax savings in our own income bracket. And note the higher income tax brackets. Say someone makes more than $1 million. That tax savings of $2,250 would no longer go to that beloved school program. Proposition GG shows voters the actual costs of tax savings.

Most Colorado voters surveyed back ballot transparency, according to research firm Strategies 360. Sixty-seven percent of Coloradoans said they would vote “yes” on a ballot measure that changes the state income tax rate to require fiscal summaries with a table for tax filers in different categories. This is Proposition GG. It makes the impact of tax changes easier to understand.

You know the expression. You get what you pay for. And we’d like a better idea of what is saved or lost with tax changes.

Groups that endorse Proposition GG include Colorado Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. We endorse it, too, as we see no reason not to support it. Vote for Proposition GG.