Fees and taxes: what the state’s own records show.
The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights caps the revenue the state may keep each year. Some of what the state collects counts against that cap. Revenue to a state enterprise, which lives mostly on fees, does not. This page reads two state records to set the revenue outside the cap beside the revenue inside it. Then it shows what the State Controller files as fees, and as taxes, among the revenue the cap counts. Every figure names its publisher or stays blank.
Enterprise revenue, which TABOR does not count, beside the revenue it does
Revenue to a state enterprise is not counted against the TABOR cap. Legislative Council Staff, the legislature’s nonpartisan research office, says enterprises are “primarily funded through user fees.” It also says enterprise status “shifts the responsibility of paying” for a service from the state to its users.
Outside the cap, per dollar inside it
Enterprise revenue ÷ revenue counted under the TABOR cap, FY 2018-19 to FY 2022-23
Each bar divides two published figures for one year. It never adds them: they come from two publishers with two definitions, and their sum is a total nobody prints. Above $1.00, the revenue outside the cap was the larger. The tallest bar is FY 2020-21, $1.68. FY 2019-20 is a labeled gap. That year's own State Auditor report has not been read, and a later report's restated figure is not borrowed. The series stops at FY 2022-23 because the enterprise memo stops there.
Revenue outside the cap, since the limit began
Total revenue of TABOR-exempt state enterprises, FY 1993-94 to FY 2022-23 · Legislative Council Staff's own compilation
FY 2017-18: SB17-267 · FY 1993-94: $742.3M
The FY 2017-18 step is a reclassification, not new collections. The hospital provider fee became the Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise in FY 2017-18 (SB17-267), moving roughly $3B of existing fee revenue outside the cap in one step — a reclassification, not new collections. Nothing after FY 2022-23 is drawn, because the publisher's memo ends there. Also refused by name: "FY 2025 enterprise revenue $28.2 billion" — NOT PUBLISHED — circulating figure, not verified against any official document in this set.
View enterprise revenue and the revenue under the cap as a table — every year either is published
| Fiscal year | Enterprise revenue | Revenue under the cap | Per $1 under the cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY 1993-94 | $742.3M | ||
| FY 1994-95 | $821.5M | ||
| FY 1995-96 | $825.0M | ||
| FY 1996-97 | $904.4M | ||
| FY 1997-98 | $960.2M | ||
| FY 1998-99 | $950.5M | ||
| FY 1999-00 | $964.3M | ||
| FY 2000-01 | $1.07B | ||
| FY 2001-02 | $1.42B | ||
| FY 2002-03 | $1.38B | ||
| FY 2003-04 | $1.68B | ||
| FY 2004-05 | $3.80B | ||
| FY 2005-06 | $5.76B | ||
| FY 2006-07 | $6.44B | ||
| FY 2007-08 | $7.03B | ||
| FY 2008-09 | $7.17B | ||
| FY 2009-10 | $10.25B | ||
| FY 2010-11 | $10.95B | ||
| FY 2011-12 | $11.85B | ||
| FY 2012-13 | $10.55B | ||
| FY 2013-14 | $10.69B | ||
| FY 2014-15 | $11.20B | ||
| FY 2015-16 | $11.29B | ||
| FY 2016-17 | $13.55B | ||
| FY 2017-18 | $17.86B | ||
| FY 2018-19 | $16.09B | $14.79B | $1.09 |
| FY 2019-20 | $20.88B | PENDING PENDING | PENDING PENDING |
| FY 2020-21 | $27.12B | $16.10B | $1.68 |
| FY 2021-22 | $22.33B | $19.75B | $1.13 |
| FY 2022-23 | $23.30B | $20.23B | $1.15 |
| FY 2023-24 | $19.44B | ||
| FY 2024-25 | $19.45B | ||
| Enterprise revenue is Legislative Council Staff's compilation, which ends at FY 2022-23. Revenue under the cap is the State Controller's certified figure, each year from its own State Auditor report. | |||
| The two are never added. A ratio is printed only for a year both publish. | |||
Sources — Legislative Council Staff: State Government Enterprises (memo r24-905, 2025-01-22) · Colorado Office of the State Auditor: Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2019 (report 1914P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2021 (report 2161P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2022 (report 2252P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2023 (report 2357P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2024 (report 2457P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2025 (report 2557P, audit letter 2025-09-15)
Inside the cap
CALCWhat the State Controller files as fees, and as taxes, among the revenue the cap counts
Fees are inside the cap too. Each year the State Auditor publishes the State Controller’s revenue table line by line. The report’s own appendix files every line under one of five headings: Income Tax, Excise Tax, Other Taxes, Licenses, Permits, and Fees, and Other Revenue. This section adds up the lines under each heading. The headings are the State Controller’s, not ours.
Fees the cap counts, year by year
Lines filed under "Licenses, Permits, and Fees", FY 2020-21 to FY 2024-25 · a floor
Registrations, driver's licenses, business and other licenses and permits, service fees, inspections, and from FY 2023-24 a separate "Transportation Fees" line. The grouping is the State Controller's own, from each report's Appendix A. Court fines, interest, rents and sales of products count as other revenue. They are left out, so each bar is a floor.
View the revenue under the cap by kind as a table — every year a line table was read
| Fiscal year | Licenses, permits and fees | Fees’ share | Taxes’ share | Revenue under the cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY 2020-21 | $967.3M | 6.0% | 90.8% | $16.10B |
| FY 2021-22 | $1.09B | 5.5% | 92.2% | $19.75B |
| FY 2022-23 | $1.03B | 5.1% | 91.7% | $20.23B |
| FY 2023-24 | $1.22B | 6.3% | 89.5% | $19.44B |
| FY 2024-25 | $1.28B | 6.6% | 89.6% | $19.45B |
| Each year is read from its own State Auditor report. A later report restates the year before, and that restated column is never read. | ||||
| FY 2018-19's report prints its total and no line table in a form this page reads, so that year has a total in the section above and no row here. | ||||
Sources — Colorado Office of the State Auditor: Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2019 (report 1914P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2021 (report 2161P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2022 (report 2252P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2023 (report 2357P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2024 (report 2457P) · Schedule of TABOR Revenue, Fiscal Year 2025 (report 2557P, audit letter 2025-09-15)
What the record does not say
The question this page cannot answer, and why
The share of all state revenue that is fees is not published. No document read for this page divides every dollar the state collects into fees and taxes. This page does not do it either. Adding the enterprise total to the revenue under the cap would build a total that neither publisher prints. The two use different definitions, so this page divides them and never adds them.
Enterprise revenue is not all fees paid by Coloradans. The Legislative Council Staff table counts the State Lottery, college and university enterprises, the unemployment insurance fund and CollegeInvest beside fee-funded programs. It does not split any enterprise’s revenue by who paid it. So the ratio in the first section compares two published totals and claims nothing more.
The fee share under the cap is a floor. It counts only the lines the State Controller files under “Licenses, Permits, and Fees”. Court fines, interest, rents and sales of products are filed as other revenue and are left out. A fee inside a line filed as a tax is left out too.
Two years are blank on purpose. FY 2019-20’s own State Auditor report has not been read. That year reads PENDING; a later report’s restated figure is not borrowed. Enterprise revenue after FY 2022-23 is not published in the record this page reads, so the enterprise line and the ratio stop there.
Full data standards: Methodology · The Honesty Framework (opens in a new tab).