Supporters of Colorado graduated income tax measure submit ​required number of petition signatures

The supporters of a citizen initiative to put a graduated income-tax system in the Colorado constitution said Monday that they had submitted more than 157,000 signatures to the Colorado secretary of state’s office as they seek to qualify for the November ballot.

The groups making up the Protect Colorado’s Future campaign had said in advance of the Monday signature-gathering deadline that they were “pretty close” to gathering the required number of signatures for Initiative 195. As a constitutional measure, the initiative needs the support of at least 124,238 registered voters, and from at least 2% of the registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts.

“Every signature represents a Coloradan who believes our tax system can be fairer,” Kathy White, executive director of Colorado Fiscal Institute, one of the coalition’s member groups, said in a press release Monday. “No matter what happens at the ballot or before, thousands of people have laid the groundwork for a future where working people pay less and the wealthiest pay their fair share.”

The secretary of state’s office must verify the signatures before the measure qualifies for the ballot.

If passed, Initiative 195 would represent the biggest change to date to the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 constitutional amendment that enacted a number of strict limits on Colorado’s tax system, including annual caps on revenue growth, requirements for voter approval for all tax increases, and a flat-rate structure for income taxes. As required by TABOR, 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.

Colorado graduated income tax proponents rally canvassers ahead of petition deadline

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.

The Protect Colorado’s Future campaign relied on a combination of paid canvassers and volunteers to collect signatures. Campaign finance disclosures show it’s raised a combined total of about $269,000 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 Monday that Initiative 195 “would chase revenue out of Colorado, causing economic damage to working families.”

“Advance Colorado will lead the effort with an issue committee to oppose this income tax hike, and we have already turned in signatures for an alternative measure that benefits all Coloradans — an income tax cap of 4.4%,” Advance Colorado president Michael Fields said in a statement.

If both the graduated income tax measure and Advance Colorado’s 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 new revenue it would raise would help bring an end to the last several years of painful budget shortages at the 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.

“Reaching this signature milestone means Coloradans are one step closer to a fair tax code and the essential investments our families have gone without for too long,” Renee Ferrufino, president of the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, said in a statement. “Initiative 195 would dedicate funding for early childhood education, the educators who make it possible, and the families who depend on it.”

Initiative 195 is one of as many as 14 citizen initiatives that could appear on Colorado’s 2026 ballot, and the last one to submit petition signatures. Six measures have already qualified. The secretary of state’s office is required to determine the sufficiency of the remaining eight measures no later than Sept. 2.