This article is part of our look at potential refunds from the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. Learn more about how TABOR works here.
Title: HB15-1227 Tax Credit For Employers That Pay Student Loans
Sponsors: Rep. K.C. Becker (D-Boulder), Sen. Rollie Heath (D-Boulder)
Status: Introduced and assigned to the House Finance and Appropriations committees on Feb. 17. The House Finance Committee referred an amended version of the bill to the Appropriations Committee on March 11. The Appropriations Committee killed the bill on April 10.
What the bill would have done: Create a limited number of income tax credits employers can claim by helping repay their employees' student loans. An employee would have needed a degree in science, technology, engineering, math, or a vocational certificate in manufacturing, industry, or information technology. The credit would have been worth half of what the employer pays to the loan.
How it would have affected your refund: This bill would have reduced the average taxpayer refund by 31 cents in fiscal year 2015-16.
What was said about this bill:
Ed Sealover, writing for the Denver Business Journal on April 10:
Rep. KC. Becker, D-Boulder, asked the appropriations committee to kill her HB 1227, which would have offered tax breaks of as much as $5,000 per student per year to employers in the STEM fields (science, math, technology and engineering) who help to pay off student loans. Becker acknowledged the cost of the bill — $1 million next year and $2 million the year after that — was too high, and she said she is looking for different ways to move forward with the program.
