Year: 2015

This was news to me before the ACLU of WA-WOLA trip to Spokane, which educated me about this practice, already described in an article from September 2014:

“Unlike many banks worried about the drug’s federally illegal status, Spokane’s Numerica Credit Union has offered accounts to marijuana growers and processors (retailers are not allowed). Numerica wouldn’t confirm the number of accounts it’s opened or the amount of its application or monthly fees, though a spokesperson said special fees were necessary for the ‘initial and ongoing due diligence’ on the accounts. Growers and retailers tell the Inlander the application fee alone is $1,000.”

The rationale I heard for “no-retailers” is Continue reading “WA Credit union accepts cannabis growers”

Chris Law just finished law school in DC and is studying for the California Bar.  I read an early version of this paper and thought it was super.  Pdf is easier to read: Legalized Recreational Marijuana and the Black-Market Challenge.  (Thanks, Chris.)  Here are four key recommendations:

1.  States Should Avoid Price-Based Taxes Adopted by Colorado and Washington Because of the Potential for a Price Collapse;    2. Recreational Marijuana Taxes Should Start Low and Gradually Increase as the Market Matures;  3.  States Should Structure Taxes to Help Businesses Make Deductions on Federal Taxes;  4.  States Should Implement Policies to Reduce Competition Between Recreational and Medical Marijuana Markets.

++++++++++

Legalized Recreational Marijuana and the Black-Market Challenge: Early Lessons for Future Pot Laws

 

Christopher Law Continue reading “Early Lessons for Future Pot Laws — Chris Law”

Julio Calzada, drug czar of Uruguay:  “We had begun working with a low tax; now we have a flexible tax, which will be able to move. Our law allows for that, and at least our low tax – that’s what allows us to compete with the black market. Eventually as the legal market develops and grows we could raise taxes.”  here or at https://vimeo.com/130489985 at the 40’24” mark

UPDATE:  Bryce Pardo says that rates have not been set yet.  So I guess this statement indicates intention rather than fact.  If you listen to the Spanish, Impuestos = taxes.

Intros, then questions and answers:  An hour and five minutes. Link here, or https://vimeo.com/130489985

This is part of the Workshop, https://aclu-wa.org/cannabis2015.  At the public marijuana subcommittee summit in Spokane, WA, June 11, with featured guests: Continue reading “Spokane cannabis workshop video”

Regular and heavy users of cannabis are at risk of overdoing it, as the RAND Report for Vermont points out. How might cannabis businesses attempt to target them?

Some options include bulk pricing, customer rewards, sales promotions, and loyalty discounts, like buy 10 and then get one at cost (which we saw in Spokane with the ACLU-WOLA group), or buy 10 and get one for free.

Still, a standard bulk discount is hard to argue with. For instance, if you buy a gallon of milk, you pay less per ounce than if you buy 8 pints.  But taxing by weight, rather than by price, takes away some of the benefit of the bulk discount to the heavy user. Continue reading “Tax large buyers”

 

Video soon, I think.  Part of the Workshop, https://aclu-wa.org/cannabis2015.  At the public marijuana subcommittee summit in Spokane, WA with featured guests:

· Julio Calzada (Immediate Past Secretary General of the National Drugs Board;of Uruguay Continue reading “Spokane panel”

The ACLU of Washington State and the Washington (D.C.) Office on Latin America have assembled a fantastic set of reference materials on evaluation of cannabis legalization policies.  Click here or go to https://aclu-wa.org/cannabis2015, which leads to a reference materials and a five-page reading list.

The reading list is reachable directly here or at https://aclu-wa.org/sites/default/files/attachments/Cannabis%20Policy%20Evaluation%20Workshop%20-%20RECOMMENDED%20READING.pdf

At right is Don Stevens, Mayor of the first jurisdiction ever to set up a cannabis store — North Bonneville, WA.

Story at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/18/washington-state-pot-store-brings-revenue-to-local-town/.

Here is the statement of David Lampach, CEO of Steep Hill, to the California Blue Ribbon Commission on marijuana legalization.

A key sentence from his statement is:

From my experience, the foundation of a well regulated and consumer oriented cannabis marketplace must include these three principles:  “individual responsibility”, “transparency”, and “accountability”.

Full statement pasted below.  More legible pdf is at DLBlueRibbonCommTestimony6-3-15. Continue reading “Lampach statement on testing”

Here is a video of a meeting of California Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Legalization in Fresno in 2015, where then-Lieutenant Governor Newsom presides.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdbQcJrIP68&t=17s

For the tax part, I come in a little after the 28’30” minute mark. Rob MacCoun of Stanford Law is about 5 minutes before me. Q&A after I finish.  Lieutenant Governor Newsom does a good job throughout, I would say.  The answer part of the brief Q&A on the tax part starts at about 36’44”.  There’s more Q&A at 1’04″30.

Continue reading “BRC in Fresno”

Allen St. Pierre, head of NORML, writes:

Perversely, this is too cool!

State vs. Counties vs. Municipalities…over taxing legal cannabis commerce.

As predicted many moons ago, once government goes from wasting taxpayer dollars propagandizing against cannabis to scrambling to ‘get their fair share’ of taxes derived from cannabis commerce, public advocates’ reform efforts will be largely half completed! Continue reading “County tax irritates cities”

I try to be a student of taxes, and have been studying taxes on cannabis.  I post material that I think relevant to taxation of cannabis, and what do you know?  Just about everything I come across that looks into the technicalities of that field comes from supporters of legalization.  Opponents of legalization aren’t paying attention to those technicalities, I suppose.  They are stuck in Just Say No mode, maybe.  I don’t think that will work out very well for them.

Next up, a posting from Allen St. Pierre.

Dr. Dale Gieringer, the Director of Cal NORML, has given me permission to post his written testimony about how cannabis production should be taxed in connection with a possible 2016 ballot initiative in that state.  I do not necessarily agree with what he writes, but his testimony advances the discussion.

I’ve pasted the first page or so, but footnotes and page numbers make complete pasting impractical.  A legible version of the whole thing is at TaxingMJinCal-DG-LtGovBRC.

TAXING MARIJUANA PRODUCTION IN CALIFORNIA

For the Lt Gov’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana

By Dale Gieringer, Ph.D

Director, Cal NORML – http://www.canorml.org

RATIONALE FOR TAXATION. As California moves towards legalizing

marijuana, taxation of the industry is warranted on several grounds.

(1) To compensate for external social and health costs Continue reading “Gieringer on taxing production in CA for 2016”

“A 20% tax at any one stage in the industry is more likely to invite evasion than the equivalent of a more modest 6+% tax at three different stages. In addition, a succession of taxation stages offers convenient checkpoints to monitor the market.”

That’s an excerpt from written testimony of CANORML’s Dale Gieringer to California’s Blue Ribbon Commission on legalization.

 

 

You hear people say the Tax Code is complex because it has so many words. Good article here.

But to measure tax complexity, don’t count words in the statute; count

— the number of lines in forms you have to fill out.

— the hours it take to figure your taxes.

— the days until you know for sure the amount you owe. Continue reading “Measuring tax complexity”

For tax evasion, there’s an optimal level of enforcement, and an optimal level of crime. You can’t “wipe out” the black market. You can reduce it to a tolerable level. There’s an optimal size of the black market, probably consisting, as suggested below, of “relatively small violators.”

There is still moonshine being made in the mountains of North Carolina, I imagine, but not enough to matter – not enough to be an economic threat to the commercial liquor market that’s regulated and taxed. For law enforcement to scour the mountains every week in search of that last moonshiner would be hugely expensive to the point of being silly and counterproductive. No one I know buys non-tax-paid liquor, and you can’t find it on Craigslist. It took a while after repeal of alcohol prohibition for the black market in liquor to die down.

Before repeal, President Roosevelt’s team put it this way: Continue reading “The optimal amount of crime is not zero.”