Face the State

Face The State Staff Report

While once local chambers of commerce were seen as a voice for free enterprise and small businesses, some Denver business owners are now alleging that they've become an arm for big government and tax increases.

“They do not represent small business very well,” said Jim Noon, a former member of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and owner of the Centennial Container on 38th Avenue.

According to DMCC officials, small businesses represent 97 percent of all employing businesses in Colorado. A small business is generally defined as any company with less than 100 employees, and in Colorado represent such employees constitute 90 percent of the chamber's membership.

Christine Burtt, chair of the Colorado Republican Business Coalition, alleges that small business struggles have become a low priority for the DMCC as the chamber has become a driving force behind two recent multi-billion dollar tax increases. The chamber was a key backer of RTD's 2004 FasTracks light rail expansion, slated at the time to require a $4.7 billion tax increase. In addition to its $250,000 campaign contribution, the chamber also published a study suggesting that the project would create jobs and sustain growth. Four years later, FasTracks is $2 billion over budget and rife with controversy over alleged eminent domain abuses.

In 2005, the DMCC donated $708,386 to the campaign behind Colorado's largest ever tax increase. Referendum C on that year’s ballot projected a tax increase of about $3 billion. The Denver chamber pushed hard for the tax that has doubled in cost to taxpayers, with a total price tag to taxpayers of over $6 billion.

And earlier this year, DMCC President Joe Blake told the Denver Business Journal that a controversial vehicle registration tax increase, supported by Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, “has merit.” Blake told the DBJ, "This is a promising - and frankly, intriguing - idea to explore further." If the increase is passed into law, it could cost residents an average of $100 more to register a car or truck.

Burtt believes that major tax increases, like FasTracks and Referendum C, are often supported by big businesses that benefit from the government contracts awarded with money generated from such revenue.

According to Tony Gagliardi, executive director of the Colorado chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, issues like affordable employer sponsored health care and eliminating the business personal property tax matter most to his members, especially those in rural areas hard hit by rising fuel costs.

Gagliardi says that to the DMCC’s credit, it joined with NFIB during this year's legislative session to advocate raising exemptions under the state's strict business personal property tax, recently dubbed in the Rocky Mountain News as "the most hated" tax in Colorado and one that has long riled small business owners who see it as double taxation. After years of collective lobbying, the state House of Representatives recently approved House Bill 1225, co-sponsored by Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, and Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction. If given final approval by the Senate, the legislation would raise the exemption for taxable property from $2,500 up to $7,000 annually.

According to Kate Horle, the chamber's communications director, “Denver Metro Chamber is well known for making endorsements of economic policies that affect all of Colorado.” She maintains that its policy decisions benefit all of its members.

For former members like Noon, however, the chamber cannot adequately represent small business owners with a pro-tax agenda driven by the city's largest businesses. He says the final straw came when the chamber's leaders failed to support the small business issues important to him. Burtt agrees. “When big business interests influence policy that hurts the taxpayer’s pocket book, that in turn hurts small business,” she said.