Efforts have been underway by the Colorado Municipal League during the past year and a half to develop draft uniform sales and use tax definitions. This undertaking is in response to Senate Joint Resolution (SJR-038) passed in 2014 that “requested” and “urged” municipalities to adopt and utilize a system of uniform definitions by August 2016.  In addition, it requests a mechanism for maintaining these definitions -- a key oversight in a similar undertaking that took place in the early 1990s. 

For any "standard" definitions to apply to all home rule cities, the process would either require each city (Colorado has approximately 70 home rule cities currently) to adopt the standards and/or for state level legislation (which could be subject to legal challenge and/or require a state constitutional amendment). The Coalition to Simplify Colorado Sales Tax was formed to drive these reforms. ALCC has a seat on the board of this organization.

An additional request included in SJR-038 was that the business community have input and consultation into these definitions, because businesses are the government’s partner in collecting these taxes.

A draft of these uniform sales tax definitions is now available. We encourage you to review these definitions and determine any concerns as it relates to prior tax audits. This is an opportunity to identify and clarify key areas of ambiguity in existing sales and use tax definitions as applied to landscape companies and green industry suppliers. 

Send your concerns to Kristen Fefes at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on ALCC's Legislation and Advocacy Blog (LAB). Keep up with this and other legislative issues related to the landscape industry at the LAB.

Read more in this issue of Colorado Green NOW:
Colorado landscape industry discusses model ordinance possibilities
2016 ELITE Awards presented by ALCC
Volunteers in the spotlight at awards ceremony
CSU shines at National Collegiate Landscape Competition