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Much to the chagrin of their most progressive lawmakers, the Colorado Legislature’s special session on property taxes finally concluded with a decisive win for taxpayers.
Though the session was sparked by two ballot measures that would have cut taxes more substantially, the eventual compromise lawmakers reached remains undeniably beneficial for Colorado taxpayers. Passing with a 45-18 vote in the Colorado House and a near-unanimous vote of 30-4 in the Colorado Senate, House Bill 1001 contains a package of tax cuts that will provide relief for residential and non-residential property owners alike.
The bill is best understood as an extension, as its cosigner Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer put it, of Senate Bill 24-233, another tax break that came in May of this year.
The two bills lower residential property assessment rates from 6.8 to 6.25%. The new percentage reduces the assessed value of a $586,100 house, the median home price in Colorado, by around $3000, from $39,854 to $36,631.
Owners of non-residential property (commercial, industrial, and agricultural) received an even larger cut, down from 29% to 27% in 2025, and lowering down to 25% by 2027.
HB 1001 also restricts local taxes from growing more than 5.25% per year, a decrease from the 5.5% cap instated under SB 24-233, before which no cap existed.
HB1001 is ultimately a compromise, and initiatives 50 and 108 proposed more significant breaks. Despite this, the result isn’t far from what taxpayer advocates first envisioned.
While the twin initiatives would have lowered residential assessment rates to 5.7% and used a constitutional amendment to cap mill revenue growth at 4%, HB 1001’s lower rates and revenue caps are still a strong step in the right direction. Before the 5.5% cap, mill revenue growth averaged 9.8% per year, showcasing the need for real property tax reform. Moreover, commercial rates at 25% are only one percentage point off initiative 108’s 24% goal.
However better the ballot measures may have been, there’s no guarantee they would have passed. HB 1001 doesn’t provide rate cuts and revenue caps as large as taxpayers may have hoped for, but it will still provide much needed relief to Coloradans.
That said, the bill, despite its bipartisan nature, is not without its fair share of critics. Many argue that the largest share of the tax cuts are going to those with the most expensive houses.
Progressives proposed several alternatives to HB 1001 that would amend this supposed issue during negotiations. House Bill 1005 and 1004 would have people with houses worth more than $560,000 paying higher taxes than before, centralizing the cuts on those with homes 70% less than the median. Rather than divide citizens based on their home values, the legislature sought to provide broad relief to all citizens.
In negotiations, these progressive proposals made very little headway, receiving few votes even from Colorado democrats.
Ironically, the compromise is far more equal than what progressives could manage. A flat decrease from 6.8% to 6.25% saves every Colorado homeowner the same amount in proportion to the value of their house. The far left, pursuing so-called wealth equality, would have it so that someone with a house just $10,000 above the median value pays higher taxes than they did before.
Under HB 1001, all Colorado homeowners will pay less in property taxes. That is the fairest outcome anyone could have wished for. If you own property in Colorado, you win, regardless of race, creed, gender, or income class.