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. On the ballot, the measure will be assigned a different designation.
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%.
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, Initiative 232, explicitly seeks to undercut the graduated income tax by setting a cap on the state income tax rate. If voters pass both, it could set up a potential legal battle over which takes precedence and becomes state law. Both measures would require 50% of the electorate 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.
“We’ve been prepared for this fight for months,” Advance Colorado President Michael Fields 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.”
Other questions for the ballot include whether to:
- for possession or sale of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids
- mandate in prison for
- ban on not aligned with their biological sex
- ban on for people younger than 18
- require that law enforcement when an immigrant without proper legal status is charged with a violent crime
- establish a right for cooking and heating
- require that sales taxes on sporting goods be earmarked for conservation efforts
- require additional voter verification for mail-in ballots.
- ban congressional redistricting outside the typical once-a-decade census cycle
- create a constitutional right to hunt and fish.
- require that ballot questions be written at an 8th grade reading level
- and allow the state to keep more tax money, typically returned under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, to put toward education.
Another measure, to make a constitutional requirement to better fund roads, was pulled days before the deadline to do so after Attorney General Phil Weiser, lawmakers and the backers of the measure reached a deal to secure more money for roads in future years.
All of the items will be renumbered now that they’ve been approved for the ballot, with the ballot titles still to come. The Secretary of State must certify the ballot Sept. 4. That is also the deadline for groups backing ballot initiatives to withdraw their measures.
General election ballots can start going in the mail on Oct. 2.
