Colorado tax policy currently is “coupled” with federal tax policy. What that means is when the federal government changes tax policy, Colorado’s policy automatically conforms to those changes.

Changes to the federal tax code enacted through H.R. 1 resulted in the state losing $1.2 billion in income tax revenue, Democrats and state analysts said. Republicans have rejected that framing of Colorado's budget shortfall, insisting Democrats ignored warnings of a looming deficit and kept overspending over the last several years, and, thus, they only have themselves to blame.

That tax "coupling," in turn, created a roughly $800 million deficit in the current budget, analysts said. Only a handful of states — lawmakers have claimed it’s as few as four — do it the same way.

Mark Ferrandino, direc

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