With a voracious appetite for the public’s money, Colorado’s burgeoning state government controls much of our lives. Now, they want to control our pets with House Bill 1163, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Regina English.
Call it “The Goldfish Tax” of 2024.
Radicalized state legislators, with unlimited one-party control, pay us to buy electric cars and abortions. They overtax our homes, businesses, and cars and price the middle class into despair. They take assistance from taxpaying citizens and give it to immigrants who broke into the country. They deprive us of affordable energy by obstructing oil and gas production.
Next year, this disturbing list may include new pet taxes disguised as “fees.” The bill openly acknowledges deliberate deception.
“The power to impose taxes is inconsistent with enterprise status under section 20 of Article X of the state constitution and, therefore, it is the conclusion of the general assembly that the revenue collected by the enterprise is generated by fees, not taxes.”
The “fees” would fund a new “Pet Animal Registration Enterprise” in the Department of Agriculture. The new bureaucracy would enforce registration and the oxymoronic mandatory fees.
This unabashed, overused semantic deception assumes that taxing a “choice,” such as owning a pet, amounts to a voluntary “fee.”
With this semantic wizardry, the legislature could do anything. It could simultaneously eliminate and raise income and sales taxes by calling them fees. After all, buying candy and working are choices.
The bill describes “pets” to include any “invertebrate,” which would make a child’s ant farm the home of dozens or hundreds of pets.
From the bill: “Pet animal means a dog, cat, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster, mouse, rat, gerbil, ferret, bird, fish, reptile, amphibian, invertebrate, or any other species of wild or domestic hybrid animal six months of age or older, that is sold, transferred, or retained for purpose of being kept as a household pet.”
If an eight-year-old brings home a frog (amphibian) or snail (invertebrate), the household has 30 days to register and pay the state, or else.
Each episode in which a pet goes unregistered and untaxed would generate a $100 fine. For owners of non-registered exotic fish tanks, non-compliance could cost thousands. With registration fees ranging from $8.50 to $25 for each pet, an aquarium containing 20 tiny fish could cost $500 a year in compliance fees alone.
The bill would require all pet owners to register with the state “a designated caregiver” for the pet, the owner’s name, address, cell phone number, email address, the animal’s age, breed, and “whether the pet animal is a dangerous animal.”
Those who refuse this household invitation must pay the full $25 fine. Do the math: 100 ants + failure to register and designate a special ant caregiver = $2,500 fine. This bill lacks the legislature's typical and patronizing “people of color” language, so we’ll assume it treats red and black ants the same.
Sadly, this bill would mostly hurt the young, the old, and the poor — therefore a disproportionate number of minorities. Low- and no-income people often have pets as their primary companions. Consider a person on assistance who values a goldfish that costs a few bucks a year to feed. Under this law, the fish — or a cat — could cost too much to keep.
Colorado’s one-party extremism has created problems with drugs, crime, homelessness and affordable housing. It has given our state an inflation rate 37% higher than the national average. Without much more to control and tax, they see goldfish, kittens, snails, and ants as a great new way to enhance state control.
