Farmers and ranchers who are thinking about a conservation easement on their land might want to think fast.
The Legislature got moving again Tuesday on an almost-forgotten 10th bill in its tax package. Nine other Democratic tax bills on items ranging from soda to Internet sales were signed into law two weeks ago, The Durango Herald reports. But two more – on conservation easements and enterprise zones – got waylaid. The enterprise zone bill is still on hold, but the conservation easement bill, House Bill 1197, regained its footing Tuesday, passing the Senate Finance Committee 4-3.

In other coverage:

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: The Pueblo Chieftain: Land trusts on the Western Slope and around the state that help property owners get conservation easements aren’t thrilled with a bill in the Colorado Legislature, but they’re not opposing it anymore, either. That’s because state lawmakers reached a compromise with them. House Bill 1197 initially was intended to permanently lower by nearly two-thirds a cap on the tax credit allowed for each easement. Instead, the bill would cut by more than half the amount the state would pay, in the way of tax credits, for all easements over the next three years. And instead of having the measure go into effect March 1, which would have affected easements approved this year, it would become effective Jan. 1.

STATE BILL COLORADO
Over the weekend, Amazon e-mailed Colorado affiliates telling them they were being dropped from their commission-driven relationships with the online reseller as a result of passage of HB10-1193. Here’s how local and national media covered the story.

The Denver Post: Amazon.com told many of its Colorado online business affiliates Monday that it would sever its business relationship with them, a move that could slice into the revenues of thousands of Web retailers.
The company blamed state lawmakers for enacting a law requiring it to notify those who purchase Amazon merchandise through a local website that they owe state sales taxes. Lawmakers in turn criticized Amazon’s move as a hostage-taking gambit to force reversal of the measure.

State Bill Colorado: Scores of Twitterers weighed in this morning on Amazon’s decision to fire its Colorado-based associates because of the state’s passage of HB10-1193. Reaction, predictably, was negative, with posters complaining specifically about Colorado’s governor and state legislators who backed the bill.

The Wall Street Journal: Amazon.com Inc. pulled the plug on its marketing affiliates in Colorado after the state imposed new sales-tax regulations on online retailers.

The Colorado Independent: Enormous online retailer Amazon.com reacted to news that it would now be required to voluntarily report Colorado state sales taxes by canceling its relationship with affiliate web sites here– that is, with sites that earn a small fee for each websurfer they send to Amazon through links and ads. In a letter sent over the weekend to its Colorado affiliates, Amazon announced it will continue to do business with residents in Colorado and didn’t elaborate on how canceling the affiliate relationships balances against the new tax. The mystery has led analysts and lawmakers to speculate that the move was done strictly to send a political message. Others suggest the move is part of a larger corporate legal strategy to combat laws already on the books in Colorado, Rhode Island and North Carolina, as well as any future state sales tax laws that might pass around the country.

The Durango Herald: Amazon.com fired hundreds of Coloradans who market the Web site Monday and said it would not go along with a new state law on Internet taxes. The action surprised people who run stay-at-home marketing businesses, angered Democrats and brought calls of “I told you so” from Republicans. Amazon fired its Colorado affiliates in an e-mail sent shortly after 1 a.m. Mountain time Monday. Last month, Gov. Bill Ritter signed a bill that seeks to collect taxes from sales made on Amazon and other big Internet sites.

Associated Press: Amazon, citing a Colorado tax on online sales, is cutting off its Colorado affiliates that help sell products through the online retail site. Affiliates earn money by using their Web sites to link customers to online sellers like Amazon.

Colorado News Agency: Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, retaliated yesterday against the Colorado General Assembly and Gov. Bill Ritter for moving to collect taxes on sales over the Web. House Bill 1193, signed into law by Ritter last month, requires online retailers to inform Colorado residents how much they owe in sales taxes for purchases made via the internet. The bill would also require retailers to provide summary information to the state of people’s web-purchases. Amazon’s retaliation came in the form of closing the accounts of all Colorado sales “associates,” which are people or businesses which advertise Amazon products, and make a commission on all sales that they personally generate. While associates in the state will have their accounts closed, Amazon gave no indication that it would curtail or otherwise end its retailing in Colorado. An earlier version of HB 1193 had sought to force retailers like Amazon to collect taxes on Colorado sales if at least one in-state affiliate solicits on behalf of the retailer. Amazon does collect sales tax for a handful of states, according to www.techflash.com.

KDVR: Here’s reaction from Colorado leaders “in their own words” to Amazon’s decision.

A new website that will provide taxpayers estimates of how their taxes are spent and allow them to vote on whether that amount is appropriate was unveiled Sunday, The Denver Post reports.

Norton Rainey, executive director of the Alliance for Choice in Education, a Denver non-profit that provides K-12 scholarships to low-income kids (www.acescholarships.org), writes in The Denver Post:

“Last week the House Committee on Finance killed HB 10-1296, sponsored by Representative Spencer Swalm and Senator Josh Penry. It was a ho-hum moment. No big surprise. The bill was defeated along a Party line vote 6-5 and it was the expected outcome. But it is worth taking a closer look at what this legislation would have accomplished before dismissing it out of hand. HB 1296 would have provided low-income families with an annual $1,000 tax credit for enrolling their child in a private school. The bill would also have provided a grant of $1,000 to any public school that loses a student to a private school as a consequence of the tax credit.” READ MORE HERE

By Gene Davis, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Candy, soda, Amazon purchases and select software will now be taxed after Gov. Bill Ritter Wednesday signed into law a group of controversial bills that will suspend or eliminate a series of tax credits and exemptions.
Ritter’s signature caps a month-long legislative process that pitted Republicans vs. Democrats in a heated and often bitter partisan battle. Republicans have consistently positioned the nine bills as business-killing measures, while Democrats say they are showing the leadership that’s necessary in the worst fiscal environment since the Great Depression. The nine bills are expected to generate $15.6 million in revenue this fiscal year and $132.6 million next fiscal year.
“Signing these bills was not something I wanted to do,” Ritter said in a statement. “But it was something that was necessary in order to keep the budget balanced and to continue positioning Colorado for a strong and healthy recovery. My sincere thanks to those lawmakers who supported this package of bills and made the difficult but right decision for the future of Colorado.”
However, Republican lawmakers say the right decision by the government would be to cut bureaucracy, not to implement so-called tax hikes on businesses. The GOP this month proposed an alternative budget-balancing plan that includes a .24-percent reduction in state payroll spending for the current fiscal year and a 4.39-percent reduction for next fiscal year. The Republican senators said their budget plan would have eliminated the need for the bills Ritter signed into law Wednesday
“It is appalling that Democrats can’t find a way to balance the budget that doesn’t involve raising taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars,” said a statement issued Wednesday by Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray.
Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said earlier this month that the Republican budget balancing plan looks like something the lawmakers put together on the back of a cocktail napkin without much thought. He pointed out that Ritter’s administration is reducing personnel costs by more than $100 million. Additionally, the executive branch workforce has shed 1,000 employees since the economy started to decline in 2008, according to Dreyer.
“The Senate Republicans fail to grasp the magnitude of the $2 billion shortfall we’ve already closed and the $1 billion shortfall we still face,” he said earlier this month.
The new taxes signed into law Wednesday include:
— House Bill 1191 will levy the 2.9-percent state sales tax on candy and soda;
— House Bill 1192 will change the so-called loophole created by the 2006 Department of Revenue rule that exempted Internet downloads or load-and-leave software form the state sales tax. Republicans and representatives from a group of software companies say that taxing the “off the shelf” part of “modified off the shelf software” would send high paying jobs out of the state. But supporters say the state tax would merely mirror the tax that most other states implement on such software;
— House Bill 1193 will force out-of-state online businesses that do more than $100,000 in Colorado to either collect the state sales tax or send a letter to customers detailing their purchases and how much sales tax they owe the state.
The tax exemption bills will go into effect March 1.

Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters

In other coverage:

The Denver Post: Thousands of businesses will be getting letters over the next few days from the Colorado Department of Revenue with an important message: Sales of items ranging from soda to farm pesticide are no longer tax-free starting as soon as Monday. Gov. Bill Ritter signed nine bills into law Wednesday eliminating or suspending tax exemptions and credits, and six of the bills take effect March 1. A measure that would impose the state’s 2.9 percent sales tax on candy and soda, items that previously had been tax-free like all food purchased for home consumption, goes into effect May 1.

The Durango Herald: Coloradans’ days of shopping tax-free on the Internet are coming to an end. Gov. Bill Ritter on Tuesday signed the so-called Amazon tax and eight other bills that repeal income-tax credits. Ritter said he pushed for the taxes to avoid even deeper cuts to schools and programs for senior citizens.

Associated Press: Gov. Bill Ritter said he had no choice when he signed a package of bills taxing everything from candy and soda to online sales on Wednesday to help close a $1.5 billion shortfall in next year`s $18 billion budget. The new laws are expected to raise about $148 million over the next two years. “Signing these bills was not something I wanted to do, but it was something that was necessary in order to keep the budget balanced and to continue positioning Colorado for a strong and healthy recovery,” said Ritter.

One week after lawmakers eliminated a slew of tax exemptions, a House committee on Tuesday approved a new one — thanks to Democratic lawmaker Jerry Frangas’ vote, The Denver Post reports. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, would phase in a sales-tax exemption on equipment worth more than $500 that is purchased by telecommunications companies.

By Debi Brazzale, COLORADO NEWS AGENCY

As the House gave final consideration this morning to eliminating certain tax credits for businesses, a panel of Senate lawmakers was debating a Democratic proposal to give a new tax credit to businesses that rehire laid-off workers–stirring up controversy in a legislative session already laced with partisan bickering over tax policy.

Minority Republicans, who have fought the rollback of tax breaks on business because they said the move would kill jobs, painted the new Democratic proposal as an about-face.

“The irony is still there.  The majority passed all these tax increases and Main Street businesses kept saying that the change in tax policy will cost jobs,” said the GOP’s Sen. Mark Sheffel, of Douglas County.

Democrats pushed back.

“I smell a party a little off message,” said Denver Democratic Sen. Chris Romer. Romer said he could understand why his Republican colleagues, generally in favor of tax credits, wouldn’t support his bill.

“This is a decision about Main Street Colorado,” he said. “It’s not about whether Coca Cola gets a special tax break. It’s about average people going back to work.”

The measure, Senate Bill 133, gives a one-time tax credit to businesses for each laid-off employee they rehire.  The employee must have worked for at least a year prior to the lay-off and work again for at least a year before the tax credit would be given.  Also, to receive the credit, the employer would have to sign an affidavit that states the rehiring was due to the passage of SB133.

The GOP’s Sen. Shawn Mitchell, of Broomfield, said requiring the employer to sign an affidavit to receive a tax credit is manipulative.

“We should move away from finely sliced credits to broad-based tax credits such as a tax credit for all new hires,” said Mitchell.

Romer brushed off criticism that the bill doesn’t go far enough with an eye towards the prize he says the bill will give—jobs.

“I am pleased to have the only bill in the legislature that certifiably would rehire … 5,000 new people.  That’s 5,000 people in Colorado that are currently unemployed that would be able to go back to work as a result of this bill,” Romer said.

Fellow Democratic lawmaker and sponsor of the bill with Romer, Sen. Rollie Heath of Boulder, said the bill is needed to jump-start the rehiring process in Colorado by nudging businesses in the right direction.

“We’re trying to change the psychology. We want to change the conversation,” said Heath.

Heath said he understands what businesses are experiencing and wants to see the unemployed get their jobs back.

“As a former business owner, I know the pain businesses go through when they have to let an employee go,” Heath said. “If we can make it easier for these businesses to hire back some of their employees, and if we can get these employees back to work, we’ve done something very important for Colorado this year.”

Romer said he is pleased to have what he says is tax policy that works not for corporate interests but for the unemployed. He lauded last year’s controversial Colorado Supreme Court ruling that said a constitutional provision requiring tax increases to be put to a popular vote did not apply if the increased revenue didn’t exceed constitutional spending limits.

“This legislature, thanks to the Supreme Court decision, has the right to be back in charge of tax policy,” said Romer.

In other coverage:

Denver Daily News: A Senate committee yesterday on a 4-3 Democratic party-line vote backed legislation that would establish a tax credit for businesses to rehire laid-off employees. Senate Bill 133 was opposed by Republicans on the Senate Business Labor and Technology Committee, who argue that the legislation would be “short-lived” because when the subsidies end, layoffs would resume and unemployment would rise.

Lawmakers sent a package of bills to Gov. Bill Ritter on Tuesday that would allow taxes to be collected on candy, soda, software, online sales and other items, The Denver Post reports. The eight bills are all part of the Democratic governor’s efforts to balance the state budget, which faces at least a $1.3 billion shortfall in the fiscal year that begins in July. The bills, which remove tax exemptions and tighten legal definitions of what is taxable, are expected to generate about $92 million under most recent estimates. But seven of the bills will take effect March 1, allowing the state to collect an estimated $14.1 million for the current fiscal year, which ends in June.

In other coverage:

The Pueblo Chieftain: A swipe of the governor’s pen is all that separates a bill from being enacted that would raise taxes at Pueblo’s steel mill and could result in layoffs. On Tuesday the House by a vote of 35-30 passed HB1190, which for two years suspends the tax exemption on energy use by manufacturers.

By Gene Davis, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Scott McInnis, Republican candidate for governor, continued to slam Democrat rival Mayor John Hickenlooper Monday for not taking a stance on 13 controversial bills that would suspend or eliminate a series of tax exemptions and credits.
During an appearance at the Denver Pepsi Bottling Group, McInnis said the series of bills that would tax goods like soda and Amazon purchases would cremate, not create, jobs. McInnis used Monday’s speech to blast Hickenlooper, his main rival for the governorship, for not joining him in denouncing the bills.
“There is already a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers opposed to these tax hikes — and a lot of them passed by one vote,” McInnis said. “The Denver Mayor surely could have gotten one more Democrat vote to kill these tax increases. It is a shame that he wasn’t willing to walk across the street in Denver from his office to the Capitol to stand up for jobs, even in his own city, such as those at the Pepsi Bottling Group.”
A Hickenlooper spokesman said that the mayor isn’t commenting on the series of bills because he understands how difficult of a job lawmakers have at the State Capitol, and that weighing in on the bills would only make that job more difficult. The spokesman said Hickenlooper will comment on the bills after the legislative session ends on May 12.

Tour of Colorado
Monday’s appearance at the Denver Pepsi Bottling Group wrapped up a three-day tour for McInnis in which he staged press conferences at sites that would be impacted by the potential taxes. Sen. Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction, said the move was an effort to “put a face on a horrible economic policy.”
Because he was appearing at a Pepsi bottling plant, McInnis spoke specifically to a bill that would get rid of the tax exemption for candy and soda. Levying the 2.9-percent state sales tax on the goods is expected to give the state $3.58 million more to work with this fiscal year, and provide $17.9 million in additional revenue the following year. Next year’s state budget is facing a billion-dollar-plus shortfall.
Chris Harr, vice president and general manager of the Colorado Market Unit for the Pepsi Bottling Group, said sales for the company have already been soft and that “it’s the worst possible time to be increasing the cost of doing business.”
“Higher taxes mean lower revenue, and increased consumer prices,” he said. “A higher tax will hurt jobs not only among the direct suppliers, but the retailers and vending operators, many of whom are small business owners who operate on razor-thin margins.”
Harr told the Denver Daily News that the future of jobs at his bottling pant would depend on whether customers would be willing to pay that extra tax.
But as Gov. Bill Ritter’s office pointed out earlier this month, 14 other states tax candy, but not groceries, while 15 states tax all food, including soda and candy. A 2.9-percent sales tax on a $1 can of soda would increase the price by $.3.

Tax bills to the House
The Colorado Senate last week approved the candy and soda tax, as well as eight other so-called tax increases, last week. Democrats say that they are showing the leadership that is necessary in times of fiscal crisis, while Republicans claim the 13 bills will hurt, not help, the economy.
An alternative GOP budget balancing plan that McInnis supports — which includes a .25-percent reduction in state payroll spending for the current fiscal year, and a 4.4-percent reduction for next fiscal year — was slammed by Ritter’s office as looking like something that the lawmakers wrote on the back of a cocktail napkin without much thought.
It’s now up to the House to approve the nine bills that the Senate passed last week.

Distributed by Colorado Capitol Reporters

Tax increases Colorado lawmakers are rushing to pass to balance the budget would undo about 6 percent of the $2.2 billion in tax credits and exemptions on Colorado’s books, The Associated Press reports. They would affect a range of industries, from manufacturing to information technology to agriculture, as well as consumers.