Our Mission
The mission of the coalition is to reform Colorado's excessively complex sales and use tax system with multiple goals: fairness, simplicity, and predictability for business; revenue neutrality to avoid any adverse impact on local and state public services; and a competitive economic environment in Colorado that will attract employers. This coalition of businesses, trade organizations, and other interested taxpayers will drive reforms to achieve these goals.
Our Successes
In 2016 the coalition passed legislation, SB16-36 to reform the states' unfair system that required a taxpayer to pay the full tax audit assessment or post a bond before seeking a ruling from an independent court. Now taxpayers can appeal to district court before any tax payment is due (but retain the option to bond if desired in order to stop further interest and penalties from accruing).
Successful passage of legislation in 2017, HB17-1216, created the Legislative Sales and Use Tax Simplification Task Force which is authorized to meet for three years to examine ways to simplify the state's complex sales and use tax system. Simplify CO Coalition is now poised to spearhead the legislation recommended by the task force. View the 2017 Final Report of the Legislative Sales & Use Tax Simplification Task Force Here.
2018 legislation, HB18-1022 Requiring the Department of Revenue to issue a request for information (RFI) for an electronic sales & use tax simplification system that the state and local governments could choose to use that would provide administrative simplification to the state and local sales & use tax license and collection system. This legislation has passed both the House and Senate and was signed by Governor Hickenlooper on March 1st, 2018.
2019 legislation, SB19-006 Sales & Use Tax Electronic Simplification System. Now working closely with DOR and OIT on the solicitation / RFP process, vendor selection and continued monitoring of successful implementation. The SB19-006 vendors were recently announced – you can read more on the Colorado Government website.
Successful passage of 2020 legislation, HB20-1022 Task Force Extension, extending the Legislative Sales & Use Tax Simplification Task Force for five additional years starting after the 2021 Legislative Session and expanding the scope of sales and use tax issues for the task force to review. Additionally, we supported the passage of HB20-1023 Sales & Use Tax GIS Implementation which establishes hold harmless provisions under the states GIS system.
One of the biggest achievements is the creation of SUTS, a data base that helps business owners untangle the more than 700 sales tax jurisdictions. The data base will ultimately remove a significant amount of red tape and paperwork for business owners and free up time to do what they do best – grow our economy.
2022 successes include the passage of two bills:
HB22-1027 gives retailers who make less than $100,000 in annual sales/more time to comply with Colorado’s forthcoming destination-based system for calculating and remitting sales tax.
SB22-032 simplifies sales and use tax administration for businesses by prohibiting local taxing jurisdictions from charging non-physically present retailers business license fees in order to remit minuscule sales taxes due.
2023 successes include the passage of two bills and one resolution:
Supporting the passage of SB23-143 because it simplifies and clarifies the retail delivery fee collection and remittance process for retailers and provides flexibility for businesses wishing to pay the fee directly. SB23-143 also creates a small business exemption for small businesses with retails sales under a half million.
HB23-1017 was introduced and passed with the Task Force’s recommendation, known as the SUTS enhancement bill, adding $6.5 million in additional revenue to the SUTS system for enhancements. The measure requires modifications that improve ease of use for businesses remitting sales tax and municipalities system improvements, and it also requires the Department of Revenue to increase the awareness and participation of SUTS.
Successful passage of SJR23-004, which urges local governments to work together through the Colorado Municipal League and business partners to create uniformity in the collection of sales and use tax for construction materials among municipalities and improves Colorado's business environment.
2024 successes include the passage of five bills that bring unique benefits to small businesses:
Senate Bill 23 requires that local taxing jurisdictions hold harmless small businesses who may remit taxes to the wrong taxing districts because of erroneous address data in the SUTS and Geographic Information System (GIS). Small businesses have limited resources to research changes to the tax code and this will create more certainty for those businesses that rely on the SUTS and GIS data, decrease filing complexity, help streamline and reduce administrative burdens, and encourage more businesses to begin or continue to operate across multiple taxing jurisdictions.
Senate Bill 24 – It is critical for taxpayers to have consistency in reporting requirements related to Colorado’s sales and use tax system, including local lodging taxes imposed by local governments. This bill will provide uniformity and standardize reporting requirements across local taxing jurisdictions with the collection and remittance of local lodging taxes with other local taxes. This will help small businesses by making the requirements the same across the board. Simplifying reporting rules will help ensure the correct information is reported and make the process easier for everyone involved, including those who are collecting the money.
Senate Bill 25 concerns local government sales and use taxes administered by the department of revenue (DOR), and revises, modernizes, and harmonizes various state statues relating to the state-administration of local sales and use tax into one uniform statute. Among many, one of the greater benefits that this bill provides to small businesses is its requirement of local governments that offer vendor fees – money returned to businesses to encourage them to remit taxes – to uniformly define those fees as percentages of their tax submissions, rather than set amounts of money that can make them harder to calculate.
House Bill 1041 streamlines the processes of filing tax returns for businesses operating in multiple jurisdictions. This will help small businesses by reducing the volume and frequency of filing tax returns, including those for minimal amounts. This further encourages SUTS participation and makes it worth a business owner’s time to remit taxes to those jurisdictions.
House Bill 1050 increases transparency for local taxing jurisdictions that impose a lodging tax or sales or use tax on building or construction materials and creates a more competitive economic environment in Colorado that will attract employers. As a small business in the construction industry, calculating a barrage of different tax rates in various jurisdictions is very complicated and time consuming. This bill makes it so we can identify what the jurisdiction is charging up front in order to accurately calculate the rest of the tax amount owed.
Sales & Use Tax System (SUTS)
Demonstration & Information
Our Leadership
The Coalition to Simplify Colorado Sales Tax is a nonprofit organization governed by an independent board of directors. Are you interested in joining our board of directors or advisory board? Please contact us at simplifysalestax@gmail.com.
Board of Directors
The current board represents over 8,400 businesses across Colorado as well as the CPA Society with 8,500 members.
American Furniture Warehouse
Associated General Contractors of Colorado
Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado
Automated Business Technologies
Colorado Automobile Dealers Association (CADA)
Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association
Colorado Society of CPAs
Expedia Group
Martin Marietta
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
Rocky Mountain Mechanical Contractors Association (RMMCA)
Silverstein & Pomerantz
SMACNA Colorado
Summit Brick Company
Summit Ford
TaxOps
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
President – Matthew Groves, CADA
Vice President - Michael Gifford, AGC of Colorado
Secretary – Laura Williams, Martin Marietta
Treasurer – Pam Feely, Colorado Society of CPAs
At-Large - Judy Vorndran, TaxOps