Working group organizes to resolve tax credit complaints

    The working group that could come up with recommendations on how to refund tax credits to hundreds of Coloradans got underway on Tuesday, June 25, at the state Capitol.
    The working group came out of legislation passed in the 2019 session — House Bill 1264 — that seeks to resolve years of complaints from landowners that they were robbed of tax credits when they donated part of their lands to land trusts, counties and other nonprofit entities.
    Alan and Julie Gentz of Sterling have been among the loudest critics of the program, set up in state law in 1999. They donated 70 acres from their Sterling farm to Logan County in exchange for $500,000 in tax credits in 2006 and 2007.
    But five years later, on the eve of the end of the statute of limitations, the Department of Revenue rejected those credits and demanded not only repayment but penalties and interest.
    On Tuesday, Alan Gentz and Erik Glenn, executive director of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association Land Trust, were chosen to co-chair the eight-member task force. All members were appointed by the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate.

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