Some retailers in metro Denver are not collecting the 0.4 percentage-point increase in RTD’s sales tax that went into effect at the start of the year to pay for the FasTracks rail-expansion plan.
The Regional Transportation District estimates that it is short about $1.8 million in tax receipts for the first three months of this year because some businesses failed to adjust their sales-tax collections to reflect an increase in the tax from 0.6 percent to 1 percent.
Voters last November approved the tax increase to pay for the bulk of the $4.7 billion FasTracks program, which will build at least six new rail lines.
Joseph Smith, RTD’s senior manager for finance, said most of the nonpayment is probably inadvertent, with some retailers simply not aware of the need to alter tax collections.
The Colorado Department of Revenue is requesting sales-tax worksheets and other information from businesses that appear to have underpaid taxes because they did not begin collecting the FasTracks tax increase, Smith said.
RTD is confident that it will get all the taxes owed on the FasTracks tax from the first of the year, he said, but it may take until midyear to get all businesses caught up with the program.