Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

The Sum & Substance

Is end of Colorado Dem’s House supermajority needed for balance on business debates?
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Is end of Colorado Dem’s House supermajority needed for balance on business debates?

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance While politicos are focused on eight or nine races to see if Democrats keep their Colorado House supermajority in the Nov. 5 election, maybe the most important thing for business is not the number of seats each party wins so much as the fact there are so many contests. That observation is one offered particularly by Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat who holds significant power as chairwoman of the Joint Budget Committee and who also is a business advocate and one of the most frequent aisle-crossers on economic issues. Bird thinks that Colorado employers already have won — first by the results of June primaries that broke largely to pragmatists in both parties but also by the fact that close races require candidates to knock on doors an...
Read More
Legislators have a business tax-break plan — and opposition to it
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Legislators have a business tax-break plan — and opposition to it

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance After considering several options to reduce the business-personal-property tax burden, Colorado legislators appear interested in backing a plan that would nix a rarely used tax break and create a new benefit focused on smaller companies. Late last month, the Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning Tax Policy advanced five proposals to Legislative Council, which will meet next week to determine which of those and of other interim-committee suggestions will be introduced as bills in the 2025 session. And while committee members declined to advance either of two BPPT-specific proposals it earlier had discussed, they did agree to incorporate one of those proposals into an omnibus bill that would make myriad changes to state tax law. ...
Read More
Legislators favor lighter touch to regulating business audits contracted by cities
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Legislators favor lighter touch to regulating business audits contracted by cities

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance Given the options of taking an aggressive or conservative approach to combatting “trigger audits,” Colorado legislators appear to have chosen the latter. The Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force last week unanimously approved a bill for drafting that would require any that any third-party auditors contracted by cities maintain the same confidentiality with collected data that Colorado governments would use. It also will send a letter to the Colorado Department of Revenue calling on it to convene a task force to help increase the number of businesses using the existing SUTS tax-filing system — a change that it believes would boost compliance with state law. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE SUM & SUBSTANCE
Read More
Report on hospital facility fees could stir new health-care regulatory efforts
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Report on hospital facility fees could stir new health-care regulatory efforts

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance A legislatively mandated report on hospital-system facility fees that was released Tuesday appears likely to spark a new round of debate on whether the state should limit the fees that opponents call costly and unclear and that hospitals say are vital to offsite operations. The Hospital Facility Fee Report concluded that the fees, added for services in nonacute-care settings, drive up health-care costs by more than $50 million annually, are opaque and confusing and incentivize independent physicians to affiliate with larger hospital systems. However, the report also notes that a reduction in fee revenue could drastically cut the federal matching money that’s been used to expand Medicaid eligibility, and it noted several times that the task for...
Read More
Colorado regulators appear to reach consensus on cumulative-impacts regulations for oil & gas
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Colorado regulators appear to reach consensus on cumulative-impacts regulations for oil & gas

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance After four weeks of testimony and debate, Colorado regulators seem to have aligned on new cumulative-impacts rules that will require more protections from oil and gas firms wanting to drill in already impacted areas but will not shut off future projects altogether. The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission broke Thursday afternoon until Oct. 8 but not before coming to a consensus around how oil-and-gas operators must account for their emissions as part of the cumulative impacts of all industry in an area. Environmental advocates have sought such added considerations for five years to better protect poorer communities that already have higher levels of pollution and industrial activity, and the rules the ECMC is developing ...
Read More
Legislators considering bills to reduce ‘trigger audits’ targeting business
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Legislators considering bills to reduce ‘trigger audits’ targeting business

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance Multiple medium- to large-sized companies say that they’ve been targeted for audits over and over by groups of a dozen or more municipalities in recent years, typically at the behest of a third-party auditing firm contracted by smaller cities to investigate potential tax scofflaws. It’s not the general concept of the audits that bothers tax professionals and business leaders so much the frequency and number of these audits, as well as the fear that an unregulated company is sharing information from the investigations to spur more audits. The primary company contracting with Colorado cities to perform these audits says it does not share such information, but critics note that the firm — Revenue Recovery Group of Baton Rouge, Louisiana — refuses...
Read More
Deadline looms for packaging producers to register for new state-mandated recycling program
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Deadline looms for packaging producers to register for new state-mandated recycling program

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance In just two weeks, any substantially sized company that produces packaging sold within Colorado — from plastic to glass to wood — must be registered with a new industry-led organization that will soon begin charging fees to fund a statewide recycling system. The deadline comes more than two years after the Legislature approved the first-of-its-kind makeup for the funding and administration of the programs, and the deadline has been moved up nine months from what that law originally anticipated. And while the Circular Action Alliance is still working to determine how many companies will be affected by the fee, the watchdog Colorado Consumer Coalition estimates the total could be about 1,500. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE SUM & SUB...
Read More
Could an election-reform initiative really help the business community?
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Could an election-reform initiative really help the business community?

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance To the average business owner struggling to keep up with inflation and new regulations, electoral reform may not seem like an issue that should be at the top of their priority list. But former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry would beg to differ. Thiry, no stranger to election fights, is spearheading a ballot initiative this year that would upend the way Coloradans vote in statewide primary and general elections. Proposition 131 is drawing criticism from party leaders, unions and senior groups for being confusing and self-serving to the businessman, ensuring that it will be one of the more talked-about measures on what will be a crowded ballot this fall. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE SUM & SUBSTANCE
Read More
State regulators on verge of passing new cumulative-impact requirements on oil-and-gas projects
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

State regulators on verge of passing new cumulative-impact requirements on oil-and-gas projects

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance Colorado regulators are debating an “enormous” set of regulations that will require consideration of the cumulative impacts of any new or expanded oil-and-gas project on air, water and other natural resources before state officials can grant operating permits. The rules are the product of several laws passed since 2019 aiming to protect communities already dealing with significant emissions by requiring the state to consider permits in the context of existing pollution rather than focus only on the impacts of the new projects. The most recent bill on the subject, approved this year, gave the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission a specific definition of “cumulative impacts” around which it must build the new regulations. How...
Read More
Bill signing, initiative withdrawal sets November ballot at 14 measures
No Comments
Approved, State, The Sum & Substance

Bill signing, initiative withdrawal sets November ballot at 14 measures

By Ed Sealover | The Sum & Substance Colorado’s November ballot took its final 14-initiative shape Wednesday as Gov. Jared Polis signed a tax-cut bill resulting in the withdrawal of two high-profile initiatives that sought to achieve even bigger tax reductions and lead to bigger revenue losses for governments. With the removal of Initiatives 50 and 108 from the ballot, the remaining issues either have no direct impact on businesses or affect only specific business sectors, such as firearms dealers and operators of veterinary practices. But former DaVita CEO Kent Thiry is pushing one voting-reform measure, Initiative 310, in hopes that it can help more moderate and often business-friendlier candidates to survive the primary- and general-election processes more often. The Democr...
Read More