Amanda Pampuro

DENVER (CN) — With Coloradans streaming over 100 billion hours of Netflix last year, the state Department of Revenue urged the Court of Appeals on Wednesday to let it tax subscription fees like any other sale of entertainment.

“Netflix’s argument is based on an unexamined assumption of what was for sale in 1935 when the legislature purposely chose a broad term,” argued senior assistant attorney general Emma Garrison.

In 2021, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 21-1312, codifying Department of Revenue rules allowing the taxation of digital goods. Netflix, however, has long argued that the state’s taxation of “tangible personal property” cannot apply to streaming services that didn’t even exist when the law was written in 1935.

Under Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of

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