Grocery tax is well past its expiration date
There was a time when our town only had two grocery stores and a handful of gas stations.
Before the redevelopment of our downtown core — before the factory outlet — and even before our state recognized the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), our town services subsisted on the grocery tax. Because we had nothing else.
We paid for our cops, built our roads, and ran a town government through the direct taxation of the milk and bread that was purchased at those two, small grocery stores.
But we aren’t that small town anymore.
With the addition of the Promenade and continued improvement in the economy, we are seeing our town coffers grow to more than $44 million in sales tax revenue in 2017 alone. In 2016, that number was $39 million.
Yet in spite of a healthy and diversified economy here in town, we continue to incorporate the most regressive sales tax imaginable.
