December 2015 – The Center for New Revenue

Colorado wholesale marijuana prices aren’t dropping

In Colorado, wholesale marijuana prices are not dropping yet. The latest official data shows bud prices nearly flat over time, but trim prices going up. New official “average market rates” (AMR) – wholesale prices – are here:

	AMR Prior to December 31, 2014	AMR as of January 1, 2015	AMR as of July 1, 2015	AMR that will be effective on January 1, 2016
Flower Rate ($/lb)	$1876	$2007	$1868	$1948
Trim Rate ($/lb)	$296	$364	$370	$464
Immature Plant Rate ($/EA)	$9	$9	$8	$9

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/AverageMarketRateFactSheet.pdf Continue reading “Colorado wholesale marijuana prices aren’t dropping”

How a forgotten tax footnote limits the marijuana trade — 280E

Newsweek blog picks up Brookings article here, or at http://www.newsweek.com/how-forgotten-tax-footnote-limits-marijuana-trade-408190. Only the title is different, and they add this caption to a photo of a plant: “Section 280E of the federal tax code, a 1982 brainchild of Bob Dole’s Senate Finance Committee, is hitting state-legal marijuana sellers in the pocketbook.”

And here it is: Continue reading “How a forgotten tax footnote limits the marijuana trade — 280E”

Dole’s Exemplary 280E

Brookings FixGov blog published what they call a deep dive on 280E on Decmeber 18, 2015. The Brookings publication is here, but I’ll paste below. Thanks to John Hudak and Grace Wallack of Brookings for editing it brilliantly, and to Rachel Barry and Emily Oglesby for comments on earlier drafts. And a hit tip to Bob Dole, a master at legislating. But maybe 280E was just luck.

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How Bob Dole got America addicted to marijuana taxes

As states legalize marijuana, more marijuana businesses are opening across the country. An obscure 1982 brainchild of Bob Dole’s Senate Finance Committee, section 280E of the federal tax code, is hitting state-legal marijuana sellers in the pocketbook—right now. 280E, which says taxpayers cannot deduct costs of selling federally illegal drugs, is not just helping fund the federal government. It’s also hampering marijuana advertising and marketing—to the satisfaction of nervous parents, and to the consternation of profit-seeking marijuana promoters.

280E was more a political statement than a model of tax policy, and it can’t eliminate marijuana advertising. But it does discourage that advertising, so it may be one of the most useful marijuana tax laws we can imagine. And while some anti-advertising proposals run afoul of the commercial free speech doctrine, 280E is constitutional. So 280E may help slow down Big Marijuana. If so, an anti-advertising tax rule like 280E might come in handy if the public ever musters the strength to take on Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco. Continue reading “Dole’s Exemplary 280E”

Responsible Ohio 2015 Marijuana Text

Here is the text of the failed 2015 Ohio marijuana legalization initiative. My source, http://responsibleohio.com/the-amendment/ no longer links to anything. (http://responsibleohio.com/ now converts to http://freemarketohio.com.) Skip the long-winded summary by searching for “FULL TEXT OF AMENDMENT.”

Amendment

TITLE

Marijuana Legalization Amendment

SUMMARY

This Amendment would add a new section 12 to Article XV of the Ohio Constitution Continue reading “Responsible Ohio 2015 Marijuana Text”

Dropping Walgreen’s thanks to tax audit

As a result of a recently completed federal income tax audit, I stopped getting prescriptions from Walgreen’s. All my other health care providers, physicians and pharmacies, when asked, sent me a full list of everything I spent on deductible purchases in 2013. Walgreen’s made me ask in writing twice, and then sent me an incomplete list as if it were complete. They never furnished a full list (leaving me to rely on receipts that included items their list omitted). Continue reading “Dropping Walgreen’s thanks to tax audit”

Audit yields refund

As reported 16 September, my 2013 federal income tax return was chosen somehow for an audit. After hours of assembling documents and furnishing them to the IRS, the result came in the mail yesterday: I get a refund of $219.00. Continue reading “Audit yields refund”

Senator Dole and 280E

For folks from North Carolina, who think of Elizabeth Dole, who passed through here long enough to get elected as our Senator, as Senator Dole, I think of her husband as the real Senator Dole.

Bob Dole, when Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, was a great American, I thought. He was looking to protect his friends, but he didn’t mind taxing other people. That was the best the public could get back then, and may still be. The alternative is Don’t Tax Anybody, which calls for selling a lot of assets. Or going broke.

Newt Gingrich once called him the tax collector for the welfare state. Senator Bob Dole didn’t have the visceral anti-tax attitude that seems prevalent in today’s GOP. It’s not surprising that in 1982, when the idea of 280E, denying deductions for selling illegal drugs, came up, it came up in Bob Dole’s Finance Committee.