Colorado has made some very welcome amendments to its “Retail Delivery Fee” (RDF) that promise to make things easier for wineries shipping their wines to Colorado consumers. 

Since the fee went into effect in July last year, Colorado has received a great deal of pushback from remote sellers in many industries because of the difficulty and cost of revising POS systems to comply with this new requirement. As originally enacted, the fee was required to be separately itemized on invoices and collected directly from the customer. To further complicate matters, some cities decided to charge sales tax on the RDF. 

Colorado heard the complaints and passed a new law, effective July 1, 2023, that will make things easier for out-of-state wineries selling direct to Colorado consumers. The sales threshold will be raised from $100,000 to $500,000 before a winery would be required to collect the RDF. In addition, the RDF will not need to be collected from the customer or shown separately on the invoice. At the same time, the RDF will be increased from $0.27 to $0.28 per delivery for those wineries still required to remit the fee. 

Although fees paid from July 1 of 2022 through July 1 of 2023 will not be refunded, DTC shippers whose Colorado sales are less than the new threshold of $500,000 can ask the Colorado Department of Revenue to close their RDF account and remove themselves from the program after July 1. Closing that account will save the winery from having to file returns for this fee which it is no longer required to collect. For specific information on the process of closing your RDF account, visit https://tax.colorado.gov/retail-delivery-fee. 

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