Colorado graduated income tax proposal qualifies for 2026 ballot

Coloradans will vote this November on a ballot measure that would raise income taxes on the top 3% of earners and slightly cut them for everyone else.

Backers of Proposed Initiative 195 submitted a sufficient number of petition signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot, the Colorado secretary of state’s office said Tuesday. As a constitutional measure, the initiative needed the support of at least 2% of the registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts, in addition to a total of 124,238 valid signatures.

The secretary of state’s office said the measure’s proponents had submitted 130,938 valid signatures. Unlike many other constitutional ballot measures, it will only need the support of a simple majority of Colorado voters to pass, because it would repeal rather than amend a portion of the state constitution, while enacting the graduated tax system through statute.

“Initiative 195 qualifying for the ballot means voters have the opportunity to create a fairer tax code that rebalances the scales,” Christina Soliz, executive director of New Era Colorado and a co-chair of the coalition backing the measure, said in a press release. “This is our chance to build a state where the wealthy pay what they owe and where young people can actually see a future here.”

If passed, Initiative 195 would eliminate the flat-tax requirement contained in the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 constitutional amendment that enacted a number of strict limits on Colorado’s tax system. The state income tax rate is currently set at 4.4% for all earners, setting it apart from most states — especially those as Democratic-leaning as Colorado — with progressive or graduated income tax systems, under which higher earners pay higher rates.

Initiative 195 would hike the tax rate to 7.4% for income above $500,000 and gradually increase the rate to 8.4% for income above $1 million. Those higher rates would apply to the top 3% of earners, while the 97% of Coloradans who earn less than $500,000 per year would see a slight income tax reduction. A fiscal analysis by nonpartisan state legislative staff estimates that the measure would raise $2 billion in additional revenue for the state by the 2027-28 fiscal year.

Campaign finance disclosures show Protect Colorado’s Future, the group backing Initiative 195, has raised a combined total of about $401,000 in monetary and in-kind contributions from a network of liberal advocacy groups including the Bell Policy Center, New Era Colorado, Great Education Colorado and the Western Colorado Alliance.

Advance Colorado, a “dark-money” nonprofit that has spent heavily to pass conservative policies through the ballot box, said in a statement Tuesday that it has “been prepared for this fight for months,” arguing that the tax hike on high incomes “will take good paying jobs away from working families and out of our state.”

Advance Colorado’s Initiative 232, which aims to counter the graduated income tax proposal by capping the state income tax rate at its current 4.4% level, has also qualified for the ballot. If both the graduated income tax measure and Initiative 232 were to pass, their conflicting provisions would be resolved according to which measure receives the greater number of “yes” votes.

Supporters of Initiative 195 say the graduated tax system would bring an end to the last several years of painful budget shortages at the state Capitol. In the most recent legislative session, lawmakers were forced to make cuts to close a budget gap that had grown to $1.5 billion, largely because of rising Medicaid costs and the downstream impacts of congressional Republicans’ 2025 passage of H.R.1, a massive tax and spending cut law. The text of the measure directs the new revenue to K-12 education, childcare services and healthcare programs.

“Every Colorado student deserves a great public school and real pathways to opportunity, with great teachers who are paid and supported the way they deserve,” said Lisa Weil, executive director of Great Education Colorado. “Initiative 195 qualifying for the ballot means Coloradans will have the chance to vote their values and build a tax system where everyone pays their fair share and our neighborhood schools finally get what they need to do right by our kids.”