Colorado
State Rundown 1/17: Budget Deficits, Online Sales Tax, and More
• By ITEP Staff
The big news this week in state tax law is that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take on the issue of online sales, nexus, and sales tax collection. States have increasingly lost out on sales tax revenues as more transactions have shifted online from brick-and-mortar stores and the laws determining who is required to collect and remit sales taxes haven't kept up. This is potentially good news for states—25 of which National Association…
State Rundown 1/4: Will States Show Resolve in a Challenging Year?
• By ITEP Staff
This week marks the beginning of what is bound to be a wild year for state tax and budget debates. Essentially every state is already working to sort through the complicated ramifications of the federal tax cuts passed in December, including Kansas, Michigan, Montana, and New Jersey highlighted below. These and other states will have important decisions to make about how to incorporate, reject, or mitigate various aspects of the new federal law, and will…
State Rundown 12/20: The Days Get Longer from Here
• By ITEP Staff
These have been dark days for those who care about tax justice and public investments, but with the Winter Solstice this week and many states diving into their legislative sessions in January, longer days (and long work days) are soon to come! Governors and legislators are already proposing or hinting at their 2018 tax and budget plans in Alaska, California, Iowa, Maryland, and Washington. And transportation investments are getting strong support in Missouri, Oregon, and…
How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect Colorado Residents’ Federal Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
The final tax bill that Republicans in Congress are poised to approve would provide most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill would go into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals would all expire after 2025, with […]
The Final Trump-GOP Tax Plan: National and 50-State Estimates for 2019 & 2027
• By ITEP Staff
The final Trump-GOP tax law provides most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low- and middle-income Americans. The bill goes into effect in 2018 but the provisions directly affecting families and individuals all expire after 2025, with the exception of one provision that would raise their taxes. To get an idea of how the bill will affect Americans at different income levels in different years, this analysis…
State Rundown 12/13: Supermajority Laws Considered in Some States Even as They Confound Others
• By ITEP Staff
Supermajority requirements for tax increases are proving a major obstacle to responsible budgeting in Oklahoma, while ballot initiatives are being filed to alter or abolish Oregon‘s similar requirement, but a similar requirement is slowly advancing toward the ballot in Florida nonetheless. Displeasure with agricultural property taxes are spawning both a ballot initiative drive and a […]
All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act
• By Misha Hill
As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently…
How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect Colorado Residents’ Federal Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The graph below shows that both bills are skewed to the richest 1 percent of Colorado residents.
National and 50-State Impacts of House and Senate Tax Bills in 2019 and 2027
• By ITEP Staff
The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. National and 50-State data available to download.
Revised Senate Plan Would Raise Taxes on at Least 29% of Americans and Cause 19 States to Pay More Overall
• By ITEP Staff
The tax bill reported out of the Senate Finance Committee on Nov. 16 would raise taxes on at least 29 percent of Americans and cause the populations of 19 states to pay more in federal taxes in 2027 than they do today.
Denver Magazine: How the House and Senate Tax Plans Would Affect Coloradans
November 16, 2017
To pay for its extensive perks for the wealthy, the House bill adds $1.5 trillion to the national deficit over 10 years, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). It also cuts or caps popular middle-class tax deductions for homeowners, families, and students, and intentionally excludes millions of low-income children from modest […]
CNN: GOP Tax Plans Could Fuel the Suburban Revolt Against Trump
November 15, 2017
The bite from the GOP bill is deeper for upper-middle-class families in major metropolitan areas, particularly in Democratic-leaning states where taxes, and usually property values, are higher. While only about one-in-five families between the 80th and 95th income percentiles in most red states would face higher taxes by 2027 under the House GOP bill, that […]
How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect Colorado Residents’ Federal Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
The Senate tax bill released last week would raise taxes on some families while bestowing immense benefits on wealthy Americans and foreign investors. In Colorado, 53 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 14 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.
Analysis of the House Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
• By Matthew Gardner, Meg Wiehe, Steve Wamhoff
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on Nov. 2 in the House of Representatives, would raise taxes on some Americans and cut taxes on others while also providing significant savings to foreign investors.
How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect Colorado Residents’ Federal Taxes
• By ITEP Staff
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on November 2 in the House of Representatives, includes some provisions that raise taxes and some that cut taxes, so the net effect for any particular family’s federal tax bill depends on their situation. Some of the provisions that benefit the middle class — like lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are designed to…
State Rundown 11/1: Connecticut Balances Budget, Leaves Tax Code Out of Whack
• By ITEP Staff
This week a "historic" but highly problematic budget agreement was finally reached in Connecticut, Michigan lawmakers banned localities from taxing any food or beverages, and Nebraska and North Dakota both got unpleasant news about future revenues. Also see our "what we're reading" section for news on 11 states that have run up long-term fiscal deficits since 2002 and the impacts of flooding on local tax bases.
State Rundown 10/4: Wildfires in Montana and Tax Cuts in Kansas Wreak Budget Havoc
• By ITEP Staff
This week, Kansas's school funding was again ruled unconstitutionally low and unfair, while Montana lawmakers indicated they'd rather let historic wildfires burn a hole through their budget than raise revenues to meet their funding needs. Meanwhile, a struggling agricultural sector continues to cause problems for Iowa and Nebraska, but legalized recreational marijuana is bringing good economic news to both California and Nevada.
Benefits of GOP-Trump Framework Tilted Toward the Richest Taxpayers in Each State
• By Steve Wamhoff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and Congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would affect states differently, but every state would see its richest residents grow richer if it is enacted. In all but a handful of states, at least half of the tax cuts would flow to the richest one percent of residents if the framework took effect.
GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in Colorado with 59.3 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
• By ITEP Staff
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in Colorado equally. The richest one percent of Colorado residents would receive 59.3 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $637,800 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $86,480 in 2018, which would…
Poverty is Down, But State Tax Codes Could Bring It Even Lower
• By Misha Hill
The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual data on income, poverty and health insurance coverage this week. For the second consecutive year, the national poverty rate declined and the well-being of America’s most economically vulnerable has generally improved. In 2016, the year of the latest available data, 40.6 million (or nearly 1 in 8) Americans were living in poverty.
State Tax Codes as Poverty Fighting Tools
• By ITEP Staff
Astonishingly, tax policies in virtually every state make it harder for those living in poverty to make ends meet. When all the taxes imposed by state and local governments are taken into account, every state imposes higher effective tax rates on poor families than on the richest taxpayers.
State Rundown 9/13: The Year of Unprecedented State Budget Impasses Continues
• By ITEP Staff
This week, Pennsylvania lawmakers risk defaulting on payments due to their extremely overdue budget and Illinois legislators will borrow billions to start paying their backlog of unpaid bills. Governing delves into why there were more such budget impasses this year than in any year in recent memory. And Oklahoma got closure from its Supreme Court on whether closing special tax exemptions counts as "raising taxes" (it doesn't).
Nearly Half of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million Annually
• By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the U.S. population (one-half of one percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But in 2018 this elite group would receive 48.8 percent of the tax cuts proposed by the Trump administration. A much larger group, 44.6 percent of Americans, earn less than $45,000, but would receive just 4.4 percent of the tax cuts.
In Colorado 37.5 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
• By ITEP Staff
A tiny fraction of the Colorado population (0.4 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 37.5 percent of the tax cuts that go to Colorado residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 40.4 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 4.1 percent of the tax cuts.
State Rundown 8/9: And Then There Were Three
• By ITEP Staff
This week, Rhode Island lawmakers agreed on a budget, leaving only three states – Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – without complete budgets. Texas, however, remains in special session and West Virginia could go back into another special session over tax issues. And in New York City, the mayor proposes a tax on the wealthy to […]
