Publications

Review of Colorado’s Property Taxes and Model Policy 0
- FISCAL, Issue Papers, Publications
- September 4, 2024
Over the last few years, Colorado’s property tax system has been the subject of considerable debate and efforts toward reform. Rapidly rising residential property values and a structure that gave relief to residential owners, but not commercial property owners, pushed the issue to the fore of the state’s fiscal discussion.
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How New 2024 Tax Expenditures Undermine TABOR 0
- FISCAL, Publications
- July 24, 2024
Governor Jared Polis has been a consistent advocate for eliminating the state income tax, or at least “buying it down” through the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) surplus. This year, Polis claimed that legislation passed in 2024 did “deliver on that promise” to reduce the income tax rate, but Independence Institute’s research finds that legislation
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Evaluating Gov. Polis’s Tax Reform Agenda: Tax Expenditures vs. Broad-Based Tax Relief 0
- FISCAL, Issue Papers, Publications
- January 23, 2024
Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, champions increasing state revenue by eliminating provisions of the tax code that benefit special interests—what state budgeters call “tax expenditures.” Rather than use the new money to grow government or redistribute surplus revenue through tax handouts and Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) refunds, however, the governor argues the state should use
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Sustainable Colorado Budget to Help Eliminate State Income Taxes 0
- FISCAL, Issue Papers
- December 8, 2023
In 1992, Colorado voters adopted the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) to limit the growth in state and local spending. Over the past three decades, however, politicians from both parties and a complicit judicial branch have exempted more and more state spending from the TABOR limit. When voters adopted TABOR, 67% of state spending was
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Comparing 2022 Gubernatorial Nominees’ Plans to Eliminate Colorado’s Income Tax 0
- FISCAL, Issue Papers, Publications
- October 10, 2022
The 2022 Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, Heidi Ganahl, has proposed eliminating Colorado’s income tax, calling it a “big bold idea to take us to zero income tax.” On September 30th at a gubernatorial candidates’ forum hosted by Colorado Concern, the moderator, Dean Singleton, pressed Ganahl on her plan for accomplishing this. In response,
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The Tax and Regulate Reality Behind Governor Polis’s Libertarian Image 0
- FISCAL, Issue Papers, Publications
- September 26, 2022
To what extent is Jared Polis a pro-liberty or libertarian governor? Here we can take “libertarian” broadly to mean support for free markets and personal liberties. There is no precise measure of the “libertarianness” of Polis’s various policies and actions that might yield some overall objective score. Some of his policies and actions are pro-liberty,
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