Colorado to stop sales tax on diapers and menstrual products

Starting Wednesday, Colorado will not cost a gross sales tax on diapers, incontinence merchandise and menstrual merchandise due to a regulation which was signed by Gov. Jared Polis earlier this 12 months. 

The regulation is a part of an initiative to avoid wasting Coloradans cash in 100 methods.

“This new bi-partisan regulation lastly ends the gross sales tax on diapers and female hygiene merchandise completely and begins saving folks cash on these vital merchandise,” Polis mentioned in information launch Monday.

Based on the Girls’s Basis of Colorado, people spend about $15 per thirty days on interval merchandise. For diapers, households pay near $75 a month per little one. The state estimates the laws will save Coloradans a mixed $9.1 million yearly.

“Eliminating the sale taxes on diapers, interval, and incontinence merchandise will assist enhance the affordability of those important objects in a time the place inflated costs are hitting working households arduous,” mentioned state Rep. Susan Lontine, who sponsored the invoice.

The regulation additionally works to take away the stigma related to interval merchandise and different important items, mentioned state Rep. Leslie Herod, one other sponsor of the invoice.

“Eliminating the gross sales and use tax on interval merchandise, diapers and incontinence merchandise makes these important merchandise extra accessible and saves Coloradans cash once they want it essentially the most,” Herod mentioned. “Our regulation additionally paves the way in which in direction of destigmatizing hygiene merchandise that tens of millions of individuals depend on day-after-day.”

In a examine commissioned by Thinx and PERIOD, researchers discovered that one in 5 American teenagers struggles to afford menstrual merchandise. The examine additionally reported that 84% of scholars have or know somebody that has missed class time as a result of they didn’t have entry to interval merchandise.

Lawmakers who sponsored the invoice are hoping the tax exemption on these requirements will permit folks to entry them extra simply.

“That is about dignity,” state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis mentioned within the assertion. “The extra we are able to make these merchandise inexpensive, the extra entry of us must these important merchandise, and the more cash of us throughout our state will save.”