Dimitrakopoulos: Use $80M in collected taxes for roads in Pinal County

So it appears Pinal County officials have once again acted outside the law and placed a burden on its citizens in the form of illegal taxation.

Now $80 million already collected that was intended — dedicated — for road work sits in a frozen fund. The Arizona Department of Revenue “will decide how the $80 million is returned,” according to Mr. Dyer in his article (“AZ Supreme Court rejects voter-approved road tax: $80M collected since 2017 vote”) in the Apache Junction/Gold Canyon Independent. Returned?

Some might believe — as Mr. Sandefur also states in the Independent — that “Arizona retailers should be entitled to refund the tax they were illegally forced to pay.” They were forced to pay? How about the people who actually paid those retailers? You know, the citizens.

So now we have $80 million collected by one agency sitting in a fund that another government agency will determine how it’s spent. A creative way to realize another taxpayer funded slush fund, one might say. Perhaps I’m being cynical but maybe our locally elected officials in Pinal County are learning from their peers in Cook County Illinois (Chicago). That’s how they’ve operated for decades.

How about this, Arizona Department of Revenue — let’s spend it on the roads in Pinal County.

Maybe even use it to begin the stage one “infrastructure” for the “bypass” that as I understand, county taxpayers have already been Chicago-wayed out of in the past.

Editor’s note: Ron Dimitrakopoulos is a resident of Gold Canyon.