LAKEWOOD, Tuesday January 16, 2024 — Colorado's sales and use tax landscape requires businesses to navigate 600 municipal, county, state and special district tax jurisdictions. Determining the correct tax rates to assess for this number of jurisdictions is vitally important for any business.
Fortunately, the Colorado Department of Revenue, Taxation Division can provide businesses with the necessary tools when determining the correct tax rates, making short work of previously tall tax tasks thanks to an update to the Sales and Use Tax System (SUTS).
The Division is pleased to announce SUTS now features bulk address lookup, which can determine sales tax jurisdictions and rates for thousands of addresses at a time for all taxing entities associated with a valid Colorado address, streamlining the process for businesses.
The release of this service marks the latest resource the Department offers specifically dedicated to help businesses access highly accurate sales tax rate data.
The new functionality does this through the Department’s Geographical Information System (GIS) which allows individuals and businesses to find the correct sales tax rate for any location in Colorado simply by submitting a spreadsheet of either address or coordinate data (longitude and latitude).
“This added functionality makes SUTS an even better free resource for businesses in the Centennial State,” Taxation Division Director Brendon Reese said. “We’re always looking for ways to improve SUTS and the bulk address lookup is one more great feature that will save businesses time and heartache.”
Colorado has a unique tax landscape with 272 municipalities, out of which 103 are home-rule jurisdictions that can establish their own tax base. Out of the 103 home-rule jurisdictions, 71 are self-collecting tax jurisdictions which require businesses to file and remit tax directly to the municipality.
ABOUT SUTS
The Sales and Use Tax System was launched in November 2020 for businesses that make in excess of $100,000 in retail sales in a year.
The SUTS System has two components:
- Filing, Remitting and Payment Portal — This one-stop online portal will allow businesses to visit one site to file and pay their sales taxes for state and state-collecting jurisdictions, while also filing and paying sales tax for participating home-rule jurisdictions at the same time.
- Geographic Information System (GIS) Software — One of the primary elements to simplification revolves around businesses being able to easily identify the correct taxing jurisdictions related to the sale of a taxable good or service with the aid of a free technology solution.
The GIS allows businesses to look up the specific sales tax rate for an individual address.
The GIS will not only show state sales tax information, but it will also include sales tax information for counties, municipalities (both state-collecting and self-collecting), and special taxation districts. This system will allow businesses to accurately calculate and collect sales tax for their customers in real-time, promoting voluntary compliance by vastly simplifying the process.
More than 90 percent of the 71 home rule jurisdictions are on the SUTS System and many more have started the process of executing the agreement, along with all 64 counties and all state-administered (statutory) cities. A complete list can be found at Tax.Colorado.gov/SUTS-Jurisdictions.
Visit Tax.Colorado.gov/SUTS-info for more information.