After years of letting Colorado customers shop tax free, Amazon began collecting sales tax on purchases in February.
But this wasn’t over the so-called “Amazon Tax law,” a heavily contested Colorado law that required out-of-state internet retailers to inform customers of sales tax owed. The 2010 law, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in December, remains as is.
Amazon moved into Colorado and opened its first physical location — a warehouse in Aurora — in June. The 452,400-square-foot facility is a sortation center, which means wrapped packages arrive and are then sorted by ZIP code and delivered to appropriate neighborhood post offices.
The company also launched Amazon Flex in search of contract workers who would use their own cars to deliver Amazon packages — for $18 to $25 per hour. And the company opened its first Colorado store — a pop-up at the Park Meadows Mall in Lone Tree.
While 2016 was the Seattle retailer’s first physical entry into the state, it will unlikely be its last. Amazon has quietly been seeking developers and other technology workers and is rumored to be scouting for office space in downtown Denver.
Read the rest of the top business stories of 2016
- Amazon and Colorado make peace
- Vail buys Whistler Blackcomb
- Voters lift minimum wage
- Towns get creative to solve high country housing crisis
- Chipotle’s less-than-healthy recovery
- Internet shakes up how we watch TV
- A new era for Molson Coors
- R.I.P. Sports Authority
- Cybersecurity firms gain investment as hacks proliferate
- Overtourism becomes an issue
- Denver home prices stay hot, but rent gains cooling
- Energy outlook brightens
