Ahead of a Colorado Chamber of Commerce announcement on the impact of new taxes, the Denver-based Common Sense Institute added up the costs in an analysis obtained by Colorado Politics Monday morning.
Whether they are fees, which the legislature can authorize, or taxes that must be approved by voters, current proposals would ring up $1.8 billion a year in each of the next three to five years, analysts estimated.
While that s good for state government, it will be a strain for recovering businesses, experts are expected to say at a Tuesday press conference.
The white paper breaks down the cost of each individual proposal.
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The project collected the skill, insights and hard data from 30 business leaders affiliated with the Colorado Business Roundtable and the economists and supporters of the Common Sense Institute think tank in Denver.
The work is expected to continue for a couple of years involving more business leaders as the recovery progresses, said Debbie Brown, the president of Colorado Business Roundtable.
The report is not all bad news, but it’s not very good, either. Colorado had one of the best economies in the country for labor and business climate and that’s something good to build on, but since those measures were taken the state has lost 125,000 jobs and slipped a little from its high rankings.
When last year’s legislative session gaveled in, the hottest show under the gold dome was the pending fight over the public option, one of the last big pieces of Gov. Jared Polis’ campaign promise to save people money on their health care.
The state’s economy was booming, Polis was past his honeymoon as governor and the bill sponsors, Sen. Kerry Donovan of Vail with Reps. Dylan Roberts of Avon and Chris Kennedy of Lakewood, had made the appropriate rounds making the case for affordable insurance.
They’ll make that case again this year, Donovan told Colorado Politics, likely dropping a similar but bolder insurance proposal early in the session that begins Jan. 13.