Lakewood is about to face a costly reckoning with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights — to the tune of more than $42 million.
That’s the amount the state’s fifth-largest city has calculated it owes to dozens of cellphone carriers and telecommunications companies it wrongfully taxed for years. The bill is now coming due after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled last year that the city had violated TABOR, a state constitutional amendment, by levying a business and occupation tax without first obtaining voter approval.
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Loren Furman, the president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, said the ruling was the first time the state’s high court “found a violation of TABOR’s voter approval requirement for ‘new taxes.’ ”
The chamber filed an amicus brief in support of MetroPCS in the case.
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