By Nick Coltrain
The Denver Post
(TNS)
DENVER — Voters will decide whether to raise income taxes on the highest-earning Coloradans this November, the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday, all but setting the ballot for the general election.
Initiative 195 would create a graduated income tax for the state under which higher earners pay a greater percentage of their income than lower earners, generating significantly more tax revenue. Colorado currently uses a flat tax system, where all taxpayers, regardless of income, pay 4.4% of their income in state taxes. For the ballot, the measure will be assigned an amendment number.
The measure was the last of more than a dozen proposed questions to be certified by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office after it determined the proponents had collected enough petition signatures. Voters will decide on 14 statewide questions total, in addition to the slew of state, federal and local elections that will make up the Nov. 3 ballot.
The graduated income tax proposal is likely to be one of the marquee ballot box battles heading into the fall.
If passed, the measure would keep the current tax rate for Coloradans making between $100,000 and $500,000 per year. It would raise the marginal income tax rate to 7.4% on income over $500,000 and less than $750,000; to 7.9% on income between $750,000 and $1 million; and to 8.4% on income over $1 million.
The tax rate for Coloradans making $25,000 per year or less would drop slightly to 3.7%, and the rate for Coloradans making between $25,000 and $100,000 per year would decrease to 4.2%.
State fiscal analysts expect the proposal would bring in nearly $2 billion more in revenue every year to the state, which this year has a general fund budget of more than $17 billion. That money would be earmarked for education, healthcare, and early childcare and preschool.
Medicaid, which would be included, has been a massive driver of the state’s recent fiscal crunches.
“Every Colorado student deserves a great public school and real pathways to opportunity, with great teachers who are paid and supported the way they deserve,” Lisa Weil, the executive director of Great Education Colorado, one of the key backers of the initiative, said in a statement. “Initiative 195 qualifying for the ballot means Coloradans will have the chance to vote their values and build a tax system where everyone pays their fair share and our neighborhood schools finally get what they need to do right by our kids.”
One of the other measures proposed for the ballot, Proposition 136, explicitly seeks to undercut the graduated income tax measure by setting a cap on the state income tax rate. Earlier it was designated as Initiative 232 during the petitioning phase.
If voters pass both, it could set up a potential legal battle over which takes precedence and becomes state law. Both measures would require more than 50% support to become law. The graduated income tax proposal, while a constitutional amendment, would only remove language from the constitution, and thus does not need to clear the 55% threshold for amendments.
“We’ve been prepared for this fight for months,” Michael Fields, the president of the conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, said in a statement. “That’s why we qualified Initiative 232—the Income Tax Cap—for the ballot. An overwhelming number of Coloradans agree that the progressive tax hike is too high, too extreme, and will take good paying jobs away from working families and out of our state.
“The Tax Cap is the better answer for anyone who believes Colorado should be more affordable for everyone,” he added.
All of the items are being renumbered as amendments or propositions now that they’ve been approved for the ballot, with the ballot titles still to come. The secretary of state must certify the ballot by Friday. That is also the deadline for groups backing ballot initiatives to withdraw their measures.
County clerks can start mailing out general election ballots on Oct. 2, about a month before the election.
Photo credit: Jeffrey Beall/Wikimedia Commons
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