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A plan to issue rebates of what the Supreme Court ruled were illegally collected sales taxes that had been approved by the House never got a final vote in the Senate before lawmakers went home earlier this month.

But there's one bit of good news in all that: It's not necessarily gone forever.

Unable to reach agreement on what to do with the $45 million to $50 million available, lawmakers tucked a provision in the budget package to say that the remaining illegally collected taxes should just remain in the bank, at least for the time being. That means it is up to lawmakers next year to figure out whether to provide rebates or, alternately, allocate the dollars for specific Pinal County road projects.

Without that budget provision, it would just have gone to the state — forever — leaving Pinal residents with nothing.

This all goes back to 2017 when Pinal County voters approved Propositions 416 and 417. The first was a regional transportation plan; the second was a sales tax to pay for it.

Voters approved both.

But there was a legal challenge to the half-cent sales tax based on the fact that it applied only to the first $10,000 of anything purchased, with no additional levy for anything above that. And the Arizona Supreme Court in 2022 voided the tax, calling the two-tiered system illegal.

Under normal circumstances, that requires a refund of the more than $80 million collected — but sitting in an account while the case went to court — to those who paid the taxes.

What complicates matters is that Arizona does not have a "sales tax'' which is paid by the buyer.

Instead, it has a "transaction privilege tax,'' owed by the merchant. And that required the state to offer refunds to not to the purchasers — to whom the cost likely was passed on — but to the businesses that collected it between April 2018 and March 2022.

The deadline for businesses to seek refunds from the state Department of Revenue has passed.

Many businesses never sought their share. Rep. Teresa Martinez said some may have decided the hassle isn't worth the money while other firms may just not be around anymore.

And that left somewhere between that $45 and $50 million unrefunded — and sitting in the state treasury which collected the tax for the county.

Seeking to prevent all that leftover money from going to the state, Martinez, a Casa Grande Republican, crafted a bill to divide it up among 12 Pinal County road projects.

That, she said, is the fairest resolution, ensuring that the money is used for the purposes intended by voters.

But Rep. Justin Olson, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee — where Martinez' bill was assigned for a hearing — said that was unacceptable.

"That creates a moral hazard if you give a benefit to a government for having collected an unconstitutional tax,'' said the Mesa Republican.

So Olson took her bill and recrafted it to instead say that anyone whose primary residence was in Pinal County in 2018 through 2024 and who files a income tax return in 2026 would be entitled to get a $300 check. And if the taxpayer is dead, the money would go to a surviving spouse or the estate.

Olson rejected the idea the money should go to road projects in Pinal County — what Martinez proposed — would at least fulfill the intent of the voters who approved the levy.

"Well, a lot of voters voted against it,'' he said. "And those voters should be protected.''

That's true.

While Proposition 416 was approved by a 57-43 margin, the actual half-cent levy that the court voided — Proposition 417 — got just 51 percent of the vote.

But Olson said it comes down to the court ruling that the tax was unconstitutional.

"So, that's got to mean something,'' he said. And Olson said that means it should be refunded, even if it meant the county would not get the road-construction dollars.

"That's essentially the same as being convicted for robbing a bank and the court slapping you on the risk and saying, 'Have fun and don't spend it all in one place,' '' he said. "You don't get to keep the proceeds of ill-gotten gains.''

Olson did manage to get his $300 rebate through the House on a unanimous vote. But it stalled in the Senate.

With no deal — and time running out to act before the state would automatically get to keep the money, lawmakers punted.

They tucked a provision deep in the state budget to directs that all the money should remain in the escrow account — the one holding all the unclaimed refunds — "until otherwise appropriate by the legislature.'' And to ensure that the budget bill, enacted earlier this month, did not come too late, the measure was crafted to make it retroactive to April 9, the date that the court had said anything left unclaimed would default to the state.

Martinez said while she didn't favor the Olson approach of rebates, the decision to simply bank it for the time being makes more sense than having it just become part of the money that could get used for other purposes.

"At least it ain't going to unclaimed property,'' she said. "At least I bought us one more year.''

And it also gives them another chance to fight about it: Both are running for reelection.