Signed into law on August 28, 2025, HB 25B-1002 expands Colorado’s corporate “tax haven” blacklist by adding five new jurisdictions—Hong Kong, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, and Singapore—effective for tax years starting January 1, 2026, while simultaneously decoupling from the federal Foreign-Derived Deduction Eligible Income (FDDEI) deduction (formerly FDII) created in the 2017 TCJA and sweetened in 2025 federal law. This forces multinational C-corporations to add back the entire federal deduction to their Colorado taxable income, effectively raising their state tax bill by an estimated $35–40 million annually. Democrats insist the revenue gain is “de minimis” and “incidental” to the noble goals of “tax fairness” and “simplicity,” citing a 2018 Colorado Supreme Court ruling to dodge TABOR voter-approval requirements, while conveniently ignoring that this is yet another backdoor tax hike on companies doing business overseas.
Here we go again—Colorado Democrats playing world police with your money, slapping five more countries on their paranoid “tax-haven” blacklist just because Apple, Google, and Pfizer dare to earn profits abroad instead of bowing at the altar of Denver’s spending addiction. They rip away a federal tax break that Congress literally just made sweeter in 2025, screaming “fairness” while jacking up taxes on American companies competing in a global market against China and Europe—who, by the way, are laughing their asses off. This isn’t closing loopholes; it’s punishing success and driving jobs out of Colorado faster than you can say “headquarters relocation to Texas.” Polis and his socialist squad hide behind a cherry-picked court ruling to claim the $40 million cash grab is “de minimis”—bullshit, that’s real money taken from shareholders, employees, and consumers who’ll pay higher prices. If they were serious about fairness, they’d cut spending instead of waging economic war on corporations that actually create wealth. Absolute anti-business garbage from a state that used to brag about being pro-growth but now just pro-tax. Welcome to California Lite, where global competitiveness goes to die and your cost of living goes through the roof.