NYT: “They charge $199 per person per night — you have to be over 21 — and offer two rooms, 24/7 car service and a hot tub. They can give, rather than sell, their homegrown pot to guests.” On November 24, 2013, I predicted this bundling of service and marijuana where the marijuana was “free” – and free of the percentage based retail tax. OK, I said $200 instead of $199.
This bundling with a hotel stay may be a non-problem. Only if the hotel tax is less than 10 percent does the problem arise. In that case, maybe a state tax auditor will find this transaction and try to figure out how much of that $199 was really for marijuana — and assign a (disputable) value to tax.
The real problem is that the industry will do more sophisticated bundling to beat the tax — selling expensive vapor pens (subject to only sales tax) with “free” marijuana, say. These are the early days of figuring out how to regulate and tax.
The Center for New Revenue 