Under Polis' Proposal, Personal Business Property Tax To Be Abolished

DENVER (CBS4) - Gov. Jared Polis wants to end personal business property taxes for small businesses. It's an issue that strained business owners even before the pandemic.

"The property tax went from $24,000 to $46,000," Ron Tarver, Imperial Building Owner.

Tarver owns Denver Distillery and the Imperial Building that houses it. He's one of many business property owners who have felt the strain of taxes ballooning within the last year.

"I've had to put this property tax on my credit card," he said.

Tarver has a high limit, but others are not able to do the same.

"It has put out of business a lot of people," he told CBS4.

Polis announced his proposal to abolish the personal business property tax at the State of the State on Wednesday.

"Significantly raising the threshold so that small, medium-sized businesses don't have to A, pay the tax," Polis said.

He explains the "B" point to that is this would save owners from the cost of the paperwork and take away the risk of non-compliance.

"Whatever helps me, gets shared right down the line to all my tenants," Tarver said.

The governor has yet to release his plans, so it's unclear how the loss in revenue would be completely absorbed, but the news is hopeful to people like Tarver.

"We're not all corporations that you know that can weather the storm, we're not," he added.