A penny of your El Paso County sales tax is the PPRTA roads tax

The sales tax on a Colorado Springs receipt is really a stack of separate taxes. The state takes a share, El Paso County takes a share, the city takes a share, and one more layer sits on top: the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority, or PPRTA. That PPRTA piece works out to about a penny on the dollar.

PPRTA is its own thing, a regional transportation authority created under Colorado law that several governments join together. Voters in those places approved it, and only voters can set or raise its sales tax. The members include Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, El Paso County, and smaller towns like Green Mountain Falls, Calhan, and Ramah. So whether you owe the PPRTA penny depends on where the sale happens, not just that you live in the county.

The money is dedicated to transportation: building and widening roads, keeping existing roads paved and maintained, and supporting transit. That is the whole job of the authority.

The capital, or new-construction, portion of the tax is not permanent. It runs on a roughly ten-year cycle and goes back to voters to renew. That renewal design is why PPRTA road questions show up on the ballot every so often. When you see one, it is the tax doing exactly what it was built to do, not a new charge appearing out of nowhere.

The City of Colorado Springs publishes how the local rate breaks down, and the Colorado General Assembly’s overview explains why these regional authorities need voter approval in the first place.