When Californians, New Yorkers or residents of assorted other states decamp for a new life in Colorado, they’re often enough impressed by what appears to be our low taxes. In New York, the sliding-scale state income tax tops out at nearly 11%. In California, it’s over 12%. Colorado, of course, has one flat tax rate for all residents that currently stands at 4.25%.

Which is why new residents can be forgiven for thinking the state government’s bite isn’t all that bad here. What they learn over time is the public has to pony up plenty more to the state — in “fees.”

The state’s elected leaders have been forcing the public to fork over ever more of their hard-earned income through an ever-wider array of fees to fund the steady of growth of government. The wordplay enables our pols to get around voter-enacted taxing and spending limits in our state constitution. Under the Colorado Constitution’s Article X, Section 20 — popularly known as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR — any new tax proposed for any level of government in the state first must get voters’ approval. But call a tax a fee, and no permission is needed.

As well, TABOR limits increases in tax revenue collected by state or local government from one year to the next, but there’s no limit to revenue collected as fees.

Sure, taxpayers can see through the ruse, but Gov. Jared Polis and his fellow ruling Democrats at the state legislature continue to get away with it.

Hence, the growing list of fees Coloradans pay — stashed by the state in TABOR-exempt “enterprise funds” that in many cases are a sham. The fees are assessed and revenue amassed in the name of services ranging from highways to higher ed, underscoring how they are taxes by another name.

As The Gazette reported this week, Colorado’s Common Sense Institute has released a new tally of the fees imposed on the Colorado public’s pocketbook. Among the Common Sense report’s findings:

• In TABOR’s first year over 30 years ago, the state’s fee-based enterprises generated $742 million. By 2024, their revenue had increased nearly 3,400% to $25.8 billion. By contrast, the state’s population growth plus inflation — TABOR’s cap for the amount by which tax revenue may grow each year — totaled only 196% in that same time.

• In 1996, only 46% of total state spending was TABOR-exempt — $5,264 per Coloradan in 2024 dollars. In 2024, 74% of state spending was exempt, amounting to $9,265 per Coloradan.

• As recently as the year 2000, fee-based enterprises collected $225 per Coloradan. The amount collected in taxes was $1,209 per Coloradan. But by 2024, these amounts had surged — and flipped — to $4,322 and $2,614, respectively.

The report further found that for every $1 increase in General Fund revenue per Coloradan since 2008, total fee collections per Coloradan rose $2.69.

Whenever called out on the shell game, state officials claim they are “forced” to revert to fees because TABOR has “starved” government of the funds it needs to provide services.

There’s rarely a mention of how TABOR’s revenue limits in fact allow for government growth, including to account for a growing population. Evidently, it just isn’t enough for our elected leaders.

All of which adds perspective as lawmakers prepare to convene in a special session this month to address a budget shortfall. They’ll bemoan the cuts they’ll be asked to make. But will any of them ask how the state government got so big in the first place?

the gazette editorial board