Contra Costa Taxpayers Association
A Handbook for How We Do Business
CoCoTax has developed a handbook to help our members and others better understand how we operate. The handbook will also serve as a reference source for tools to evaluate tax and bond proposals, as well as the agencies that seek voter support for the measures they propose.
The impetus for the handbook began as a desire to help new and prospective members get up to speed quickly in the important work of Contra Costa Taxpayers Association. Beyond that, our goals included making more visible our focus on the “good government” side of our work.
The organization of the handbook is roughly: who we are, the principles of good taxation, what we believe as CoCoTax, how those beliefs are reflected in positions on important issues, criteria to evaluate taxes, bonds, and taxing authorities, templates to help do that, FAQ’s, and links to valuable information. An addendum offers advocacy tips and thoughts for CoCoTax internal projects.
We believe the handbook captures in a single document much of the good work that has been done by many individuals over several years. We also believe that it is not a document that is or will be finished, as it will no doubt prompt thinking that will continue to strengthen CoCoTax and its operation even further. For this reason, we invite and welcome your comments. Please send them to info@cocotax.org, and they will be reviewed for inclusion in periodic updates to the handbook and the templates.