Colorado de facto taxes cannabis bud now at 27 cents a gram, trim at 14 cents a gram, wet whole plants at 5 cents a gram, bud for extraction at 8 cents a gram, and trim for extraction at 6 cents a gram. Those rates apply to vertically integrated operations and related party transactions, where an actual arm’s-length transaction does not happen.
Those tax rates are 15 percent of the “Average Market Rate,” updated from time to time at https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/tax/marijuana-taxes-file:
Period Rate: April.1 to June 30, 2019
| Retail Bud Rate | $806 per pound |
| Retail Trim Rate | $425 per pound |
| Retail Immature Plant Rate | $4 per plant |
| Wet Whole Plant Rate | $151 per pound |
| Seed Rate | $5 per seed |
| Trim Allocated for Extraction Rate | $177 per pound |
| Bud Allocated for Extraction Rate | $227 per pound |
Here’s the math: multiply by .15 and divide by 453+, the number of grams in a pound:
| 806 | 425 | 151 | 177 | 227 |
| 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.15 | 0.15 |
| 120.9 | 63.75 | 22.65 | 26.55 | 34.05 |
| 453.592 | 453.592 | 453.592 | 453.592 | 453.592 |
| 0.266539092 | 0.140544807 | 0.049934743 | 0.058532778 | 0.075067462 |
The Center for New Revenue 