An Inside Look at Lobbying in Colorado with Jenn Penn
In this episode of the SALTovation podcast, Meredith Smith and Judy Vorndran talk with Jenn Penn, a Contract Lobbyist at Dome Strategies in Colorado. Jenn works with businesses to simplify tax and build coalitions for other special interest groups. Jenn talks about legislative sessions and shares the vision of the SUTS system, a sales and use tax online filing system within the Colorado Department of Revenue for businesses and local governments to work together and have one place to file their sales and use taxes.
Join us in simplifying Colorado’s Sales Tax at simplifycosalestax.com.
Topics discussed in this episode:
- The formation of the sales tax coalition
- Legislative sessions and lobbying
- The SUTS System
What You Will Learn:
- [01:21] Jenn’s professional journey
- [11:45] The Sales Tax Coalition
- [19:22] Creating a competitive economic environment in Colorado
Quotables:
- “Lobbyists are really an integral part of the process. We are targeted communications. A lot of businesses hire PR. Lobbyists really help businesses, non-profits, and other organizations communicate with the state legislator.” - Jenn Penn [02:37]
- “The mission of the sales tax coalition is to reform Colorado’s complicated sales tax system with the goal of making it fair, simple, and predictable for businesses in a way that is revenue neutral to have any adverse impacts on local and state public services and create a competitive economic environment for Colorado that will attract additional employers and trade organizations.” - Jenn Penn [18:53]
- “The general view of taxpayers isn't such that they won’t file. They just need to know how to file and they need to have a mechanism that is easy enough to understand to make it happen.” - Meredith Smith [21:16]
- “People are starting to see with technology getting better and better, there is more compliance. This is good for business. Because it is meant to be a voluntary system, not an extractive system. It is a win-win for business and governments. ” - Judy Vorndran [17:13]
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Production Support
This episode was produced with support from Truth Work Media. www.truthworkmedia.com
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