By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado
DENVER – State Rep. Lorena Garcia, a Westminster Democrat, has been working overtime to ensure a progressive state income tax initiative makes it in front of Colorado voters this November, including donating big bucks via a tax-funded nonprofit to the issue committee charged with getting the measure on the ballot.
If passed, Initiative 195 would raise the current flat tax rate of 4.4 percent to 7.4 percent for those earning more than $500,000, and increasing as incomes rise to a top rate of 8.4 percent for those earning more than $1 million. A majority of Colorado taxpayers might see a slight income tax reduction, with many eventually getting caught up in the graduated brackets, as they are not indexed for inflation.
Protect Colorado’s Future Coalition (PCFC), the group supporting the measure, had until Aug. 3 to turn in around 125,000 signatures that included at least 2 percent from each of Colorado’s 35 State Senate districts in order to meet the requirements for a citizen-led constitutional amendment. They just made it, turning in about 157,000 signatures.
Garcia’s tax-funded nonprofit
While the main effort is being led by former state legislator Chris deGruy Kennedy and the liberal policy think tank, Bell Policy Center, where he is the president, Garcia appears to be the 11th hour savior of the effort.
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