Experts, Democrats and Republicans are all in agreement: Colorado’s sales tax system is a tangled mess.

Business owners find it needlessly complicated, a mind-boggling array of conflicting rules and regulations that shift from city to city.

Consumers, by and large, are blissfully ignorant of its quirks. But the $2 billion a year in sales tax breaks the state offers to a seemingly random collection of special interests translates to less money for things such as roads and schools — and higher taxes on everything else.