Repeal Retail Delivery Fees
HB1144 would repeal Colorado’s retail delivery fee structure, eliminating the statewide retail delivery fee and the related “enterprise retail delivery fees” collected for several state enterprises. As introduced, the bill repeals the core provisions in existing law that authorize the Department of Revenue to collect a fee on retail deliveries and distribute the proceeds to transportation and environmental enterprise funds. It also removes related definitions, fee-adjustment provisions tied to inflation, and administrative rules that govern collection and remittance.
The bill’s effect would be to end a revenue source that currently supports the highway users tax fund, the multimodal transportation and mitigation options fund, and several enterprise funds: the community access enterprise, clean fleet enterprise, statewide bridge and tunnel enterprise, clean transit enterprise, and nonattainment area air pollution mitigation enterprise. It also makes conforming changes to sales tax and electronic filing provisions that reference retail delivery fees, and repeals statutory language that treats those fees as excluded from purchase price calculations. In practical terms, retailers would no longer be required to collect these delivery-related charges, and the state would lose the associated dedicated funding streams.
The general sentiment reflected in the committee history was unfavorable to the bill. In the House Transportation, Housing & Local Government Committee, an amendment was adopted, but the bill then failed on a motion to refer it to Appropriations and was subsequently postponed indefinitely by a 9-4 vote. That sequence indicates the committee was not supportive of advancing the repeal, despite some willingness to amend the measure.
The main point of contention is the policy tradeoff between reducing costs on retail deliveries and preserving funding for transportation and environmental programs. Supporters of repeal would likely argue that the fees add costs for retailers and consumers and create administrative burden, while opponents would emphasize that the fees finance bridge, transit, air-quality, and EV infrastructure projects that the legislature previously determined were tied to the impacts of delivery activity. The bill also touches broader debates over whether these charges are legitimate user fees or effectively taxes, and whether eliminating them would undermine enterprise funding and climate/transportation mitigation efforts.
HB1144 would substantially amend Colorado statutes by repealing the statewide retail delivery fee in section 43-4-218 and eliminating the authority for multiple enterprises to impose their own retail delivery fees. It would also repeal or revise numerous cross-references in the Colorado Revised Statutes, including provisions in the community access, clean fleet, bridge and tunnel, clean transit, and air pollution mitigation enterprise laws, as well as sales tax and electronic filing statutes that reference those fees. The result would be to remove a dedicated fee-based funding mechanism for transportation and environmental programs and to reduce the Department of Revenue’s collection and administration responsibilities tied to retail deliveries.
The committee record suggests the bill faced resistance and did not have enough support to advance. Although the committee adopted one amendment, members voted down referral to Appropriations and then postponed the bill indefinitely on a reverse roll call. Overall, the sentiment appears to have been negative toward repealing the retail delivery fees, at least within the committee that heard the bill.
The central contention is whether retail delivery fees should remain in place to fund transportation, bridge, transit, EV charging, and air-quality mitigation programs, or be repealed because they increase costs for retailers and consumers and add administrative complexity. Opponents of repeal are likely to argue that the fees are tied to the impacts of delivery traffic and are needed to support infrastructure and environmental remediation. Supporters of repeal are likely to focus on the burden on retail businesses, especially smaller retailers, and on the cumulative cost of multiple delivery-related fees. A related issue is the legal and fiscal characterization of the charges as fees rather than taxes, since the bill would dismantle an enterprise-based financing structure that the existing statutes are designed to preserve.