The progressive tax scheme and Colorado Business. Polis: if local decision makers don’t do what we want, let's override that. Plant disease transmission.

The progressive tax scheme and Colorado Business

Your 2026 ballot may have a proposal on it to change Colorado’s current flat tax to graduated (aka progressive) income tax rate. That means when you earn more, you pay a higher percentage of tax.

The actual ballot proposal is linked first below. I am not aware of it hitting the Secretary of State’s tracker page yet, but I know it’s on the legislature’s and that is what the link is for.

This would, quoting the press release pushed by the groups supporting this measure (linked second below), “... lower taxes for 98 percent of Coloradans, while raising taxes on individuals and corporations making more than $500,000 a year.”

At a later point, that same press release says the following (quoted with link intact):

“The graduated income tax proposal will help recapture some of the $71,000 the wealthiest Coloradans will receive in 2026 from Trump’s tax cuts, reinvesting those dollars back into classrooms, healthcare, childcare, and other state priorities that could include food security, public safety, or workforce development programs.”

While the focus in much of the coverage on this measure has been on individuals (and we’ll get to why I think that is in a second), little attention has been paid to the effect this measure would have on business.

I was curious to get a summary look at business in Colorado and how many of them would be in this new tax scheme.

Before we look at those numbers, the below is a summary of the changes that would occur in the corporate tax structure if this measure passed. The numbers were taken from the ballot measure itself.


-- For corporate incomes $0 - $100K per year, the tax rate is 4.21%

-- For corporate incomes $100K - $500K, the rate is 4.21% on amounts up to $100K and then 4.41% for > $100K to $500K.

-- For corporate incomes $500K - $750K, the rate is as previous up to $500K, for income above $500K but less than $750K the rate is 7.51%

-- For corporate incomes $750 - $1M, the rate is as previous up to $750K, for income above $750K but less than $1M the rate is 8.51%

-- For corporate incomes above $1M, the rate is as previous up to $1M, but for income above $1M the rate is 9.51%

It’s clear why this tax plan is labeled as graduated or progressive. Clearly as a corporation earns more, they will pay a higher (much higher in some cases) tax rate.

I next wanted to look at how many businesses would be effected by this change, in other words, how many corporations fit in each of these income brackets?

I went to the Department of Revenue which gave me what you see in the third link below. It’s a tax breakdown from 2022 (the latest year they would share), showing how many corporations that paid taxes here fall into various income brackets.

Note that the way they parse their data is different from the way the ballot measure would, so the categories from the Department of Revenue don’t exactly line up with the above.

I used the spreadsheet to give some summary numbers and took a screenshot of the results. That is attached as screenshot 1.

As an example, the number of corporations earning $1M or above in 2022 was 2234. That’s 3.5% of all corporations including the 26295 that had negative earnings in 2022. The number earning $0 to $100K was 30929 or 48%.

Next, I went to look at Colorado Gross Tax receipts broken down by that same group. Those results are attached as screenshot 2.

You see a pattern which is the reverse of the first table, and quite a reversal at that! Businesses earning from $0 to $100K pay about 1% of all state income taxes while those earning $1M and up pay 94% of the total gross tax revenue.

Let’s pause at that. The group that comprises 3.5% of all corporations is paying 94% of our taxes. Is this what proponents of the initiative mean in their flyer when they say our current tax structure is “inequitable”? When they say the wealthy don’t pay their fair share?

Thus the problem with blindly following the words and sloganeering of advocates. It’s tempting to vote for things like this because you might end up with a tax break and others (who presumably will have an easier time) will pay the bills (see, for example, other taxes like the “free” lunch tax on the wealthy, or the UPK tax on smokers).

This is why so much of the advocacy has been geared toward individual taxpayers and not talked much about corporations. They want you to follow that impulse without thinking. You should, however, stop and reason this through. Our economy is akin to a an ecosystem. Other people’s success may not end up directly benefiting me, but we are connected to each other.

If a business has to pay more to do business, we pay more in higher prices.

If a business suffers, they don’t hire people and/or take other steps to cut costs such as reducing hours or laying off staff.

If a business doesn’t expand because there is (as is the case with this measure) a stiff penalty against going up an income bracket, our economy stagnates.

And when the tax base shrinks because some of the businesses leave this state we either have to cut funding or the rest of us have to pay more. Anyone care to lay a bet that, if this measure passes, they’ll stop there and not be back for more taxes from lower incomes later?

We can fund the necessary functions of government without this progressive tax scheme. When the sponsors talk about reinvesting “...dollars back into classrooms, healthcare, childcare, and other state priorities that could include food security, public safety, or workforce development programs” they leave out that we have the capacity to do these things right now. We just can’t do them while doing all the other nifty things Colorado Democrats have been spending on the last four years.

This measure is unnecessary and will bring harm to us all. Vote no.

https://leg.colorado.gov/content/graduated-income-tax

https://coparentcoalition.salsalabs.org/protectcoloradosfuture?wvpId=98a8269a-b83a-4daa-bea8-d4a7bf24d652

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lHXsFbQhkQlkyPuDqZQR3kCLTQC7CWYF/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=113451218632854191614&rtpof=true&sd=true

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Polis: if local decision makers don’t do what we want, let’s override that.

The Sun article linked at bottom is another shot fired in the fight between Xcel Energy and Elbert/El Paso counties over the route that Xcel has mapped out for their Power Pathway.

The latest is that Xcel has filed with the PUC to use an old (and, per the article, “little-used”) statute that lets a utility go to the PUC to override local land use decisions.

Xcel Energy is asking 3 of Polis’ political cronies (two with ties or homes in Boulder and one from up near Vail in Edwards) to step in and approve their power line routes over the objections of the people who will have to live near the actual power lines and see them everyday.

And they do so with the encouragement of our “free state of Colorado” governor. The image heading this post has text underneath it from that same article which I’ll quote again here (with link intact) for convenience:

“It also cited Aug. 1 letter from Gov. Jared Polis who called for ‘leveraging existing PUC authorities to evaluate and approve existing and forthcoming resource acquisitions, utilizing applicable PUC appeal authority when projects are denied at the local level.’”

Use the authority (stupidly) granted to the unelected PUC when projects are denied at the local level.

I.e. why should we let those pesky local government get in the way of Polis’ and Colorado Democrats’ climate goals?

This echoes Polis’ and Dems’ other recent moves in the legislature where local authority is undermined in the spirit of having all Colorado march to the beat of the Front Range and/or live with things the consequences of the Front Range’s policy.

This is something that needs to be fought tooth and nail by local governments and anyone who does not want Denver/Boulder dictating to them. Another quick quote from the article points to how to get involved:

“Among the requirements in the backstop statute [the statute mentioned above that Xcel is availing themselves of to backdoor local control] is a public hearing in a place designated by the local government and prehearing conferences among the parties.”

If you live in either location and get wind of a local hearing, let me know. I’d be happy to post and, if possible, send in an email of my own. I also have some feelers out to the Elbert County group opposing Xcel’s plan and will update when and if I hear.

https://coloradosun.com/2025/10/02/xcel-energy-power-pathways-elbert-el-paso/

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Plant disease transmission

That time of the week again. This’ll be the last post til Sunday and so it’s time for something interesting, some nickel knowledge, not related to politics.

You may or may not be aware, but plants can contract and spread diseases just like other forms of life. They can be infected with viruses, fungi, all kind of fun stuff.

There is a virus that infects wheat called wheat streak mosaic disease. It’s a virus vectored (carried and transmitted) by a tiny insect lands on a wheat plant to feed. The insects, and the virus they carry, can overwinter in abandoned wheat or corn.

The virus itself attacks a healthy wheat plant and results in decreased vigor, which in turn means low or no wheat production. How much work do you get done when sick, right?

If you’re curious for more information about the virus itself, check out the Wikipedia explainer linked first below. It probably is obvious that the virus is a concern for farmers growing wheat. If you lose your whole crop ....

Management of the disease is (as is often the case with plants), not too far off from what you’d do for human disease. I put a snippet from the Wikipedia article on the virus below as screenshot 1 as a quick summary.

As was the case with malaria (and other diseases), one approach is to attack vector. Kill or hamper the breeding of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria, slow the spread. Kill or hamper the mites carrying mosaic virus, slow the spread.

Limit the exposure of the elderly to those that have the flu to slow the spread. Limit the planting of wheat varieties especially vulnerable to the mosaic virus to slow the spread.**

The second link below is to a perfect example of the struggle involved in not just farming but in farming with an eye toward preventing the spread of a disease. It’s a FencePost article on how volunteer wheat in the Nebraska panhandle, post-hailstorm, is putting the wheat farmers there at increased risk of this disease.

As hinted at above, if the wheat that grew back after the storm isn’t dealt with, it can be a nice, safe haven for the mites to either jump into newly-planted fields or overwinter. In talking with a friend here at my school whose family has farmed wheat for a long time, often hail damage can mean having to go out and spend more money on dead or dying wheat: you have to go out and spray to kill that wheat so it or later volunteers can’t harbor pests and disease.

Yet another reason why I don’t farm for a living.

That’s it til Sunday. Enjoy your Friday and see you back at it Sunday.

Oh, and next time you eat wheat, appreciate all the effort going into it.

**Good plant hygeine includes practices for the home garden as well. I don’t compost tomato or potato vines to limit the potential for virus spread in that species. Those plants and/or diseased tissue (suspected diseased too) all get thrown away with trash. I also don’t compost any squash plants to slow the spread of those damned vine borers!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_streak_mosaic_virus

https://www.thefencepost.com/news/high-risk-of-wheat-streak-mosaic-disease-complex-from-hailstorms/?fbclid=IwY2xjawM2QY1leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF6dUFCdFUwV1RzdXNOWEhBAR5JMSPTo24JGpxupF6hk_ulVBP1SvlJg1dSEdI4aDtJSXRaVIUckut-MT7mKw_aem_wyLzNyYV-6fLSJo_oSD0sw