Colorado Supporters Declare Victory on Graduated Income Tax

Colorado Voters Approve Historic Graduated Income Tax

Supporters of Amendment 87 declared victory on Thursday as the measure to establish a graduated income tax system in Colorado held a steady lead with 90% of the statewide vote counted, Colorado Newsline reported. The narrow 1.5-percentage-point win signals the most seismic shift in the state’s fiscal policy in decades, repealing the constitution’s flat-tax requirement and replacing it with a tiered system where higher earners pay higher rates.

This is a huge day for Colorado. The win ends a years-long struggle to surmount the strict anti-tax requirements of the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which has constrained public funding for education, healthcare, and other social programs since voters passed it in 1992.

A Fiscal Lifeline for a State in Crisis

Kathy White of the Colorado Fiscal Institute said at a press conference that the state was looking at cutting $600 million out of Medicaid alone the following year and that the era of deficits would stop.

Amendment 87 proposes a sweeping set of changes, hiking corporate and individual income tax rates to 7.4% for income above $500,000 and gradually increasing the rate to 8.4% for income above $1 million. The top 3% of earners in Colorado, those making more than $500,000 per year, will bear the brunt of these increases. The 97% of Coloradans who earn less than that will see a slight income tax reduction.

The People-Powered Campaign Overcame Deep Opposition

To win, proponents of Amendment 87 had to overcome a powerful, deep-pocketed network of conservative advocates who have increasingly prized TABOR as a key check on state government. Led by Advance Colorado, a “dark money” nonprofit that does not disclose its donors, opponents fought the measure at every stage, challenging it at the state’s Title Board and suing to have it removed from the ballot in a case decided just days before Election Day.

Conservative groups spent millions on an opposition campaign that blasted the measure as a multibillion-dollar “blank check” for state government and spread the false claim that it would eliminate deductions for Social Security income. That measure was soundly defeated, losing by a 5-point margin.

This wasn’t an overnight victory. Unlike two previous attempts to pass a progressive income tax in 2013 and 2018, this year’s campaign did not receive support from the Colorado Education Association, which instead backed Proposition NN, a related measure that also passed.

A New Era for Colorado’s Public Funding

The passage of Amendment 87, together with Proposition NN—which raises the annual revenue cap established by TABOR—marks the most significant changes to Colorado tax policy in 34 years. For years, advocates for public education and social programs have struggled under the strictures of TABOR, which requires all tax increases to be approved by voters and limits how much revenue the state can collect.

Lisa Weil, executive director of advocacy group Great Education Colorado, was involved in both previous efforts to pass a progressive income tax. She said Amendment 87 will allow Colorado to “turn the page” on an era of scarce public funding.

>It may look like stars aligned, and suddenly this happened in Colorado, Weil said. That is not how it works. Stars do not align by themselves — it requires shoving. And there are some incredible star-shovers in this group.

State Rep. Lorena Garcia, a Democrat from Westminster and director of the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, acknowledged the doubts the campaign faced throughout the process as she addressed supporters at the victory celebration in Denver’s La Raza Park.

When they said, ‘Not this year,’ what did we say? When they said, ‘OK, you barely got it on the ballot. Now how are you going to win?’ Like this. It’s with people.

Democratic Gov.-elect Phil Weiser, who opposed the amendment but pledged to implement it effectively if it passed, now faces the task of managing a transformed state budget. The victory sets the stage for a new fiscal reality in Colorado, one where the state government has significantly more resources to address long-neglected needs, funded by a tax structure that demands more from those with the most to give.