If a “progressive,” $2 billion-plus tax hike makes it onto Colorado’s statewide ballot this fall, voters will have a surefire way to neutralize it — a competing ballot proposal capping the state income tax.

Last week, as The Gazette reported, the Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Initiative 232 for the Nov. 3 ballot. Advocacy group Advance Colorado, the proposal’s author, had submitted more than 184,000 voters’ signatures last month to qualify for the ballot. State officials have now confirmed the number of valid signatures surpassed the threshold required to qualify.

Think of it as a fail-safe to counter Initiative 195, the sweeping rewrite of Colorado’s income tax that would replace our state’s straightforward 4.4% flat income tax with a dizzyingly complicated array of tax brackets, from 3.7% to 8.4%. It would be like another federal income tax.

Worse still, 195’s full range of tax brackets combined would siphon at least $2 billion more a year out of taxpayers’ pockets and into the state government’s till. It would be more play money for Colorado’s legislature to use on its next spending spree. 

That measure is still awaiting a determination from the secretary of state as to whether its backers collected enough signatures to make the ballot. 

Initiative 232’s guaranteed spot on the fall ballot provides voters an assurance that taxes won’t exceed the current 4.4% — even if 195 makes it onto the ballot alongside 232 and passes. All 232 has to do to have its intended effect in safeguarding voters is garner at least one more vote on the ballot than does 195.

As noted in The Gazette’s report, any provisions that clash between two ballot proposals if both are adopted by voters would be resolved in favor of the more popular of the two proposals. Provisions of either proposal that aren’t in conflict would take effect.

Does that mean if 195 makes the ballot and passes — yet does so with fewer votes than 232 — only the nominally lower rates of 195 would become law? Would it cut taxes for filers in its lowest proposed bracket — because it’s lower than Initiative 232’s 4.4% cap — yet not be able to raise taxes as planned for its higher proposed brackets because they’d exceed 232’s cap?

Advance Colorado President Michael Fields believes so. “It isn’t all or nothing,” he said.

Looks like the authors of the progressive tax hike could wind up shooting themselves in the foot, with nothing to show for their money grab.

It would be just deserts. But why go there in the first place? 

The best path is for Coloradans to vote down 195 if it ends up on the ballot. Because if it were to prevail without 232, it would send shock waves through Colorado’s economy.

The measure’s permanent tax hike stands to chase off higher income earners as well as businesses — our state’s job creators — to states with more reasonable tax codes. Which actually means a large potential loss of tax revenue even as the measure raises taxes. 

A Common Sense Institute study released in June revealed how the average, across-the-board rate for all taxpayers combined would rise under 195.

“Colorado would lose approximately $186 million in individual earnings annually due to migration effects, despite a modest net gain in individual taxpayers,” according to the analysis. 

Initiative 195 would be a tax hike on all Coloradans. If its backers don’t end up shooting themselves in the foot — their tax hike will backfire on the whole state.