HomeMy WebLinkAbout20200967.tiffOFFICE OF BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PHONE: 970-336-7204
FAX: 970-336-7233
1150 O STREET
P.O. BOX 758
GREELEY, COLORADO 80632
March 20, 2020
Governor Jared Polis
State of Colorado
State Capitol Building
Denver, Colorado 80203
RE: Temporary Suspension of Certain Statutory Property Tax Delinquency Requirements and
Permanent Legislative Change
Dear Governor Polis,
The Board of Weld County Commissioners respectfully requests that you suspend certain
statutory property tax delinquency payment requirements in order to provide COVID-19
property tax relief to impacted businesses and taxpayers. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted
many businesses and citizens of Weld County and of the State of Colorado. In addition, the
dramatic drop in oil prices has exacerbated the financial situation for the energy industry and its
employees. The orders to close certain facilities have created financial hardship on many owners
of businesses and their employees. Many are of the opinion the economic downturn will be short
if the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control in the next few months. However, until the
COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control many businesses in Weld County and the State of
Colorado are experiencing cashflow problems that may put them out of business. Weld County
and the State of Colorado need to do whatever they can to provide some financial relief to their
businesses and taxpayers. In discussions with taxpayers and businesses, one way of providing
financial relief without costing the state or local governments much money would be to look to
ways to delay property tax payments until October 31, 2020, to hopefully allow the COVID 19
pandemic to subside and business to return to a more normal way.
The first half of the 2020 property tax bills were due February 29, 2020, second half is due June
15, 2020, and full payment due April 30, 2020. One simple way to provide taxpayer relief for a
few months to help businesses' cashflow during COVID-19 pandemic would be to extend
property tax due dates farther into the year and/or waive interest on the late payments. By
temporarily suspending interest payments required in C.R.S. Section 39-10-104.5 (3) for late
payments, taxpayers could keep their funds in their bank accounts and on their balance sheets for
another six months at little cost to them and little lost real costs or revenue loss to local
governments in the state. Additionally, by temporarily suspending or lowering the interest
payments per CRS Section 39-10-104.5 (3) taxpayers would not be paying the full 1% per month
(12% per annum) interest penalty for late payments. Normally, the interest collected is
Go 3/35/ nS 2020-0967
Letter, Governor Polis
March 20, 2020
Page 2
apportioned to all the taxing entities on a prorate share. The economic reality is local
governments are not earning anything close to 12% annually on their cash balance. In fact, most
are probably earning less than 1% per annum with the Federal Reserve slashing its benchmark
interest to near zero. As a result, local governments would not be hurt financially by temporarily
suspending or lowering interest payments for six months.
One argument against doing a delay in tax payments for a few months, is it could cause cashflow
issues with some of the local governments, like special districts or school districts with bonded
debt payments due and just general operational cashflow. This problem would only be created if
many of the taxpayers took advantage of the delay. One would assume that many taxpayers will
pay their taxes as they normally do. This proposal gives an option to those taxpayers having a
temporary cashflow problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be much better to help
businesses with the temporary property tax plan than to have many go out of business and never
pay their taxes at all, especially personal property taxpayers. Also, to the degree financially
feasible, the county could have the option of advancing a portion of the property tax payments to
local taxing jurisdictions in the county during this period to help pay bonded indebtedness
payments, if the jurisdiction demonstrates a financial need.
To make this more palatable to other counties, the statutory change to C.R.S. Section 39-10-
104.5 (3) should make it optional to temporarily suspend or lower the interest payments per
C.R.S. Section 39-10-104.5 (3).
One way to reduce objections from other taxing jurisdictions in a county choosing to temporarily
suspend or lower the interest payments is to make the change revenue or cost -neutral to them.
The interest paid during the six-month period at the reduced interest rate charged should still
allow for the recovery of lost interest revenues to local jurisdiction based upon what they could
get in the way of interest from banks during the six month period, which is one -percent per
annum interest or 0.000833%.
This would help all businesses financially impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout
the state.
The statutory change to accomplish the above objective would be to add C.R.S. Section 39-10-
104.5 (12) as follows:
(12) A Board of County Commissioners from any county or city and county may by a
resolution temporarily reduce the interest rate in this subsection (3) of this section from
one percent per month to no lower than one -twelve of one percent per month
(0.000833%) for the period of time from May 1, 2020 to October 31, 2020. In any county
where the Board of County Commissioners have temporarily reduced the interest rate per
this subsection the County Treasurer with Board of County Commissioners approval by
resolution may advance property tax amounts to a local taxing jurisdiction in the county
during this period to help pay bonded indebtedness payments, if the jurisdiction
demonstrates a financial need.
Letter, Governor Polis
March 20, 2020
Page 3
When the legislature reconvenes, it would be nice to have this taxpayer relief permanent through
a legislative change, according to the CLS list of top legislative priorities, as it would fit under
two of the categories:
o Relief to businesses (especially retail and restaurants sector)
o Temporary reprieve of debt collection
The Board of Weld County Commissioners believes this suspension is needed to provide some
financial relief to businesses and taxpayers throughout Colorado at very little cost or lost
revenues to the state or local governments. Your support of this suspension and inclusion in any
COVID-19 financial relief legislative package your administration will be presenting to the
legislature is requested. Until the legislature acts on this statutory change we would ask that you
suspend interest payment in 39-10-104.5 (3) until October 31, 2020, by executive order.
Sincerely,
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF WELD COUNTY
Steve oreno, Chair Pro -Tern
Scott James
Mike Freeman,
Barbara Kirkmeyer
Kevin Ross
pc: Don Warden, Weld County Director of Finance and Administration
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