Who Pays Colorado Taxes?
- September 16, 2015
The trajectory of the Public Employee Retirement Association of Colorado’s (PERA) financial condition has been anything but linear. From times of seeming excess to times of projections for failure, the public employee pension scheme has changed radically over time. As of 2013, expected improvements to the system’s outlook have not materialized, and PERA is once again in crisis. While far from alone in the gov- ernment employee problem, Colorado may be facing one of the worst current circumstances.
READ MOREAt present, everyone in Colorado pays the same marginal income tax rate, 4.63 cents out of every additional taxable dollar earned. Colorado officials and their allied interest groups support a constitutional amendment both to increase the state’s income tax and to create two tax brackets. They say the additional funding will improve K-12 education, although
READ MOREMembers of the Denver City Council are proposing an ordinance that would impose a 5-cent charge on disposable (paper and plastic) bags used to carry purchases at point of sale at grocery and convenience stores with “over 1500 square feet” of retail space. Proponents call this bag charge a “fee.” But with even a little
READ MOREColorado’s Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA) is the State’s largest pension plan, with more than 483,000 members as of 2011. Government contributions exceeded $1 billion in FY2011.
READ MOREColorado state government has a spending problem. Although inflation-adjusted per capita personal income in Colorado is still below its 2003 level, state spending has risen every year since 1999. State tax revenue has risen, but it cannot keep up with the spending.
READ MOREThis paper explores a compilation of Colorado rankings from the “2013 State and Business Tax Climate Index.”
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