Colorado lawmakers push to eliminate sales tax on certain hygiene products, diapers

DENVER, Colo. (KRDO) -- After initially failing in 2017, Colorado Democratic lawmakers are pushing again for legislation that would eliminate sales tax on menstrual products and diapers in Colorado.

Lawmakers had first presented the state sales tax exemption proposals, often referred to as the Pink Tax, as two separate bills, but they were both unsuccessful. In 2022, some of the same lawmakers who initially supported the proposals plan to combine them. Senator Faith Winter, a Westminster Democrat, sponsored the 2017 diaper legislation and Representative Susan Lontine sponsored the menstrual product legislation. They plan to lead the charge with Democratic Representative Leslie Herod of Denver and Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis of Boulder County.

State Representative Leslie Herod calls this long overdue.

"These are medical supplies," says Representative Herod. "They should be taxed as such, which means they don’t have a tax.”

Rep. Herod says both menstrual products and diapers are essential items that lawmakers should do everything they can to make available and affordable. Their bill would include various types of feminine hygiene products, as well as diapers for babies and adults. The bill would only apply to the state’s 2.9% sales tax. It would not exempt the products from municipal taxes, but cities like Aurora and Denver have already exempted feminine hygiene products from their local taxes.

Five of the states that exempt taxes on these products don’t have sales taxes: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.

As of April 2021, the states that exempt menstrual products specifically from state sales taxes include Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

As of July 2021, states that exempt diapers from state sales taxation include California, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

An issue Colorado lawmakers who initially opposed the proposals in 2017 had was that the sales tax didn’t exempt essential products that others use. It's an argument Professor Josh Dunn at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs says could make its rounds again.

"There’s this broader issue of fairness that there are some products that men don’t have a need for but women do, and so, therefore, there’s nothing comparable on the male side you can have an offsetting tax for," says Dunn.

Currently, there is no sales tax on certain optional men's healthcare products, such as condoms or medication for erectile dysfunction. In a statement provided to KRDO from democratic State Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis says, in part, "Menstrual products and Feminine hygiene products are medical necessities for Women... Why are we charging sales tax on feminine hygiene products? We can remedy that gender inequity like other States have done."

But Dunn says, the biggest hurdle will certainly be monetary concerns.

"A few million dollars and that can all of the sudden make it difficult to balance its budget," Dunn says. "In Colorado, it is complicated because of 'TABOR,' the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. So, that limits the ability of the state legislature to increase taxes elsewhere to make up for the revenue shortfall when they have tax cuts, say, in this area."

Representative Herod, who now sits on the Joint Budget Committee for the state, says there's a plan in place to make up the revenue lost from eliminating the sales tax on menstrual products and diapers.

"We do have other means to replace those dollars to make sure we’re able to get the services out to people who need it," the Representative says.

"This is a great way to reduce taxes for everyday Coloradans and also put our values behind who should be taxed, where, and ensure fairness.”

In 2021, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill that would create a grant program to help schools supply their bathrooms with the products to students free of charge. In 2017, lawmakers approved providing women in Colorado prisons access to free tampons. In 2019, they passed a bill requiring jails to provide the products for free to women in custody.

As far as diapers, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 to create a diaper distribution program in the Department of Human Services.