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Colorado’s budget keeps growing. Florida just cut spending again
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s budget keeps growing. Florida just cut spending again

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado While Colorado’s majority Democrats lament the state’s persistent budget challenges, Florida’s Republican majority just celebrated reducing spending for a second consecutive year in another business-as-usual state budget.  Colorado legislators have plenty of lessons they could learn from Florida, instead, they are more likely to double down on more tax and spend, economy-wrecking policies.  How the states compare  Governor Jared Polis recently signed a $46.8 billion state budget, an almost 7 percent increase over last year’s $43.9 billion in spending, this despite legislators’ constant catastrophizing about Colorado’s “budget shortfall.”  That amounts to approximately $7,800 for every Color...
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Colorado tax data complicates the “fair share” argument
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado tax data complicates the “fair share” argument

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project High Income Coloradans pay an outsized share of income taxes As a follow-up to an earlier newsletter on Colorado’s income tax distribution (the graph headlining this post is from that newsletter), I did a summary op ed for Complete Colorado. That op ed delves into why a progressive income tax in this state would be foolhardy policy. More, including a link to my earlier newsletter with more context and detail, in the link below. https://completecolorado.com/2026/05/21/high-income-coloradans-outsized-share-income-taxes/ A different take on easing the tax burden for low income earners In the first post today, I shared an op ed I wrote which outlines why a progressive income tax (making t...
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Taxpayers on the Hook When Government Programs Cost More Than Promised
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Taxpayers on the Hook When Government Programs Cost More Than Promised

By: Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado Colorado’s state budget is structurally unsustainable, which majority Democrats say could be fixed by ending voter consent over new taxation or by increasing taxes on Colorado residents through a progressive income tax.  While those suggestions would certainly increase state revenue, they are unlikely to fix Colorado’s ongoing budget deficits.  Meanwhile, taxpayers often learn too late that programs are vastly exceeding costs; programs like Cover all Coloradans, Healthy School Meals for All, and the wolf reintroduction scheme were all revealed to be more expensive than initially advertised to voters.  Why do programs end up being so much more expensive than advertised?&n...
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Colorado Voters To Decide Future Of TABOR Refunds In November
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Voters To Decide Future Of TABOR Refunds In November

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER — For years, Democrats have been chipping away at Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds while looking for ways to permanently disable the more than 30-year-old constitutional amendment that, among other things, limits growth of a portion of the state budge to a formula of population growth plus inflation.  Revenue collected over that limit must be refunded to taxpayers unless voters consent to forgoing refunds at the ballot box. This year, however, they may have found the way. The late session introduction and passage of Senate Bill 135 sends a question to the voters in November essentially ending TABOR rebates.  Proponents are using using school children and teachers to tug at the heart strings of Coloradans ...
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SB 135 Education Tax Plan Lacks Accountability For Teacher Pay Raises
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

SB 135 Education Tax Plan Lacks Accountability For Teacher Pay Raises

By Nash Herman | Commentary, Complete Colorado According to the sponsors of Senate Bill 135, Colorado teachers will remain severely underpaid unless voters approve massive spending increases and a permanent change to how the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap is calculated.  In reality, even if it were true that Colorado’s teachers are underpaid, the SB-135 tax hike does not guarantee that things like teacher pay will increase or that teacher retention will improve.  Let’s examine why.  False advertising  The stated purpose of SB-135 is to direct new education funding to any of four categories, as best determined by school districts: increasing teacher pay, improving teacher retention, lowering class size...
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Lawmakers Attempt End Run Around TABOR With New Tax Bills
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Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Lawmakers Attempt End Run Around TABOR With New Tax Bills

By: Mike Rosen | Complete Colorado The governor and progressive Democrats that dominate the state legislature and every statewide office in Colorado have been masterful ― if not ethical and honest ― in devising devious schemes to circumvent the TABOR amendment in the Colorado Constitution.  That’s the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, passed by a 1992 voter-initiated ballot measure that bypassed the legislature. It limited government spending and barred the legislature from increasing taxes or imposing new ones without the consent of the voters. Democrats have always despised TABOR. Their favorite ploys have included misrepresenting taxes as “fees” and funding spending programs through tax credits. Because those credits reduce government revenues, they’re the equivalent of...
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Democrats Push Sweeping Tax Plan Reversing Federal Tax Benefits For Colorado Business
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TSS Colorado, Approved, State

Democrats Push Sweeping Tax Plan Reversing Federal Tax Benefits For Colorado Business

By: Ed Sealover | TSS Colorado Democratic legislators are poised to unveil a quartet of bills next week that could decouple Colorado law from hundreds of millions of dollars in new federal tax breaks, end tax exemptions on downloadable-software sales and rein in several long-standing corporate deductions. The bills, written in cooperation with the Colorado Fiscal Institute, are largely a reaction to last year’s federal passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that offered significant corporate tax breaks and blew a hole in Colorado’s budget, CFI policy manager Caroline Nutter said. Because Colorado conforms its tax code to federal code, any cut in income produced by federal changes reflects in revenue reductions to the state government as well, leading to a $1.2 billion l...
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Title Board Clears Path For Ballot Measures To End Colorado’s Flat Income Tax
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Title Board Clears Path For Ballot Measures To End Colorado’s Flat Income Tax

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Proponents hoping to change Colorado’s income tax structure from a flat rate to graduated tiers — thereby raising taxes for some brackets — walked away from a Wednesday meeting with eight ballot measures approved by the title board. The coalition backing the graduated income tax change now must pick which one to move onto the petition process. It’s a big change from the group’s last visit in October, when the three-member Initiative Title Setting Review Board rejected two proposed measures for violating a rule that ballot measures may only contain a single subject. In December, the title board turned down a third proposal for the same reason. The title board is made up of representatives from the Attorney Genera...
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When caps don’t cap costs
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

When caps don’t cap costs

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A familiar promise, a familiar frustration Voters are often told that a policy includes a built-in safeguard — a cap, a limit, a hard stop designed to keep costs under control. In Colorado, that promise came with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, approved by voters in 1992 as a constitutional amendment limiting how much revenue state and local governments can keep and spend without voter approval. Nationally, it appeared in the Affordable Care Act’s limits on how much of each insurance premium can be kept for administration and profit under the law’s medical loss ratio rules. The two systems regulate very different things. One governs government revenue, the other private insurance markets.  But cr...
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Colorado Declines Federal Tip Relief Creating Tax Season Confusion
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kdvr.com, Approved, State

Colorado Declines Federal Tip Relief Creating Tax Season Confusion

By Shaul Turner | KDVR FOX31 DENVER (KDVR) – As the end of the year approaches, many workers who rely on tips and overtime pay may face some confusion as they prepare for tax return season. President Trump’s bill passed by the legislature provides a temporary tax break for tips but that doesn’t apply on the state level. The new federal tax break for tips allows employees to deduct up to $25,000 of tip income and is effective through the 2028 tax year, but Colorado will not follow suit. “It’ll be Christmas on the federal and no holiday season on the state,” said tax attorney Chadwick Elliot of the Denver Tax Group. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT KDVR FOX31
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