What Does Proposition 136 Mean for Douglas County? The 4.4 Percent Income Tax Cap, and What Happens If Amendment 87 Passes Too

Proposition 136 is short, and it is not really about itself. It caps the state income tax rate at 4.4 percent, which is the rate today. On its own it changes nothing. Its job is to be on the ballot next to Amendment 87, the graduated income tax, and to cancel it.

What it does by itself

If Amendment 87 fails and 136 passes, your taxes do not change. What changes is that the rate is capped in statute, so a future ballot measure to raise it would have to repeal the cap first (TABOR already requires a vote of the people for any rate increase). It also caps the rate against going up, not down; voters have cut it twice this decade by ballot measure, from 4.63 to 4.55 in 2020 and to 4.4 in 2022, and could again.

What it does with 87

This is the only scenario that matters, and Douglas County voters need to get the logic right.

• Yes on 87, no on 136: the graduated brackets take effect in 2027. Most households save up to $325; taxable income above $500,000 pays 7.4 to 8.4 percent on the excess.
• No on 87, yes on 136: the flat 4.4 percent stays, now capped.
• Yes on both: they conflict on the rates above $500,000. The general rule is that the measure with more votes controls on the points of conflict, but the Blue Book says the exact outcome is unclear and the legislature or a court would have to sort it out. Nobody can tell you in advance which measure will have more votes, either.
• No on both: nothing changes, and the flat rate stays uncapped.

In other words, 136 is a no vote on 87 wearing a yes. If you have an opinion on the graduated tax, express it consistently on both lines. We walk through what 87 does to households at each income level, from a $275 saving at $75,000 to $35,925 more at $1.5 million, in our Amendment 87 page.

Why Douglas County is the swing county on this pair

Douglas County has the state's highest median household income, about $145,700, and one of its largest concentrations of households above $500,000. That means it contains both electorates: the large majority who would save a few hundred dollars under 87, and the small minority who would pay thousands to tens of thousands more. PolicyEngine's district-level model of 87 puts the 4th District at 87 percent of households paying less and 5 percent paying more; Douglas County's own split is almost certainly more top-heavy than that. It is a county full of the people 136 protects and the people 87 would give a small cut to, often on the same street.

Advance Colorado's bet is that the county's long anti-tax reflex holds. Protect Colorado's Future Coalition's bet is that a $325 cut for what it says is 97 percent of taxpayers is the reflex now.

Who is behind it

Advance Colorado, run by Michael Fields, is the conservative group behind 81, 82, 85, 86, 132 and 136 this year. It has never disclosed its donors. Fields has said the group is not funding the lawsuit to disqualify Amendment 87, which was filed by a major Denver law firm on behalf of an Arapahoe County resident. The September filings, reported by Colorado Politics, put the two committees backing Amendment 87, Protect Colorado's Future Coalition and Great Education Colorado Action, at $1.07 million, with the Bell Policy Center's $100,000 the largest single gift. Four committees are registered against 87; the two that have reported anything, Americans for Prosperity Colorado and Your Family's Future Alliance, had raised $65,417 combined. No committee has reported money for 136 on its own. The Gazette's editorial board published a hard no on Amendment 87 and Proposition NN on September 28.

The case each way

For 136: the flat tax is simple, it is in the constitution because voters put it there, and a cap in statute makes the next graduated-tax campaign start from further back. Colorado has outgrown its neighbors with a flat rate; the people who would pay the most under a graduated tax are the ones most able to leave.

Against 136: it is a measure with no policy of its own, written to confuse a ballot that already has fourteen questions on it. A cap in statute is weaker than the constitution voters already have, and locking the rate at 4.4 percent forever means the only way the state ever raises school funding is by asking property owners, which is exactly what DCSD is doing with 5A on this same ballot.

More: every race and measure on your ballot and the full November ballot guide. We do not tell you how to vote on measures; we tell you what they do here.