Author: Pat Oglesby

The North Carolina Legislature stopped counties from banning plastic bags, so I wrote a Democratic Legislator I know:

“I am particularly interested in supporting candidates who will publicly support letting localities ban or tax single use plastic bags.  If you know some who will email me their support or otherwise go on the record, I will try to help them out a little.  What do you think?  Is that a helpful approach?”

He’s asking around. I have had one taker so far, and sent her $100.  A token, but still.  UPDATE 21 August:  2 takers, for $200 total.

Tax Regulators in Alaska are considering cutting the $50 an ounce tax on marijuana bud or “flower” to $25 for “immature flower” that appears “loose” or “wispy.”  Earlier post is at https://newrevenue.org/2018/08/02/tax-cut-for-wispy-buds-in-alaska/.

That seems like a nearly impossible line to draw — a huge judgment call.  But how about putting the decisions on the internet? Each low-taxed item would be photographed and uploaded.  The public could judge if government is overreaching, or yielding to taxpayer pressure.

Here’s another fallback:  Are wispy buds less appealing to smokers, and so destined for concentration? Continue reading “More on “Wispy” in Alaska”

The tax on marijuana bud or “flower” in Alaska is $50 an ounce.  Regulators there are considering cutting the tax to $25 for “immature flower” that appears “loose” or “wispy.”

My reaction is:  No!  Please don’t! Unforced error!

 

“Loose” and “wispy”?  Who’s to say? Continue reading “Tax cut for “wispy” buds in Alaska?”

I think most of today’s article on cannabis taxes by Renu Zaretsky of the Tax Policy Center is just right.  It’s at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/high-hopes-and-altered-states-choices-marijuana-and-tax-revenue-0.  Congratulations.

But as a first reaction, I have a few quibbles: Continue reading “Reaction to Tax Policy Center’s article on cannabis taxes”

The Center for New Revenue has signed a letter, begun by Americans for Tax Fairness.  The summary gives you the idea:

OPPOSE “ROUND 2” OF TRUMP-GOP TAX CUTS – STOP ANOTHER MASSIVE GIVEAWAY TO THE WEALTHY Continue reading “Center for New Revenue opposes federal tax cuts”

My usual take on cannabis taxes:  tax low at first, tax by weight or THC, be careful about exempting medical.  Government sales are better.  After one of my co-panelists enthuses about female and minority MARIJUANA MILLIONAIRES, I show nervousness — I don’t think there will be very many.  Connecticut Legislative Commission on Women, Children and Seniors Cannabis Forum, Legislative Office Building, Hartford, Cannabis Revenue Panel, April 30, 2018. Video at http://ct-n.com/ctnplayer.asp?odID=15247; my intro at 39’30”; main remarks at 2’34”.

Continue reading “Video of Connecticut Marijuana Panel”

Current state weight-based taxes on marijuana bud or flower, per gram (and retail rates):

Alaska $1.76 (No retail tax).
California 33 cents (15% retail tax).
Colorado 34 cents (15% retail tax).
Nevada 75 cents (10% retail tax).

Math and methodology are at https://newrevenue.org/2017/07/02/nevadas-70-cent-per-gram-tax-on-marijuana-flower/.

Alaska statute says $50 per ounce.
California statute says $9.25 per ounce.
CO data is from from https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/AverageMarketRate.pdf; NV data is from , up from 70 cents: https://newrevenue.org/2017/07/02/nevadas-70-cent-per-gram-tax-on-marijuana-flower/.

 

Email to Erika McConnell, Director of the Alaska Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office

Dear Ms. McConnell:

The cannabis industry naturally wants to repeal the weight-based, per-pound tax you have in Alaska. http://komonews.com/news/local/alaskas-legal-pot-industry-decries-taxes-seeks-changes

The state and the people have interests that conflict with those of the industry. Continue reading “Center for New Revenue opposes repeal of per-ounce marijuana tax in Alaska”

Marijuana Revenue Competition — Look Out Below

Exclusive license with State Tax Notes expired, so here is  the article: Tax Competition FINAL STN 5.7.18 Oglesby, from State Tax Notes, Vol. 88, No. 6, 2018.

Abstract

Beyond the ever-present illegal market, a more subtle threat to marijuana revenue lurks:

Tax competitors (think: tax havens) threaten subnational jurisdictions that can’t or don’t control their borders.

This article presents a framework for looking at threats to marijuana revenue: Continue reading “Marijuana Revenue Competition — Look Out Below — in State Tax Notes”

[UPDATE January 2019:  Yes, the chart is pretty good, but there are a few errors.  To be sure, check original sources.]

This is the best comparative chart on cannabis taxes I’ve seen, from Fox Rothschild, an 800-person law firm.  [UPDATED chart is here:  https://www.foxrothschild.com/publications/cannabis-industry-state-tax-guide/.]  The big accounting firms were still steering clear of marijuana, last I heard, and this is the biggest law firm I’ve heard of that’s been publicly associated with marijuana.

UPDATE:  I don’t intend faint praise for this work.  It’s a huge undertaking, and a valuable one.  Thanks to Jennifer Benda and Jacob Millis for doing it.  I want to be an expert on marijuana taxes, but didn’t have the patience for this big job.  This kind of exhaustive scholarship illuminates the landscape, as Alvin Rabushka did with Taxation in Colonial America.

In 2011, I could fit all the world’s marijuana taxes onto page 257 of this.  But there is more work to be done.   Now, there are hundreds of local taxes in California and Oregon alone — like Arcata’s electricity tax.  Local fees could fill a book already. Continue reading “CNR recommends cannabis tax chart”

I asked California Department of Tax and Fee Administration a couple of questions about why cannabis tax collections are coming in low.   At the end are the questions and the CDTFA’s helpful answers, from Paul Cambra.

My reactions:  I.  The producer or cultivation tax collected only $1.6 million in the first quarter because retailers some how brought untaxed products into inventory before the tax was effective on January 1.  Retailers then sold that untaxed product in early 2018.  The standard excise tax procedure for taxing jurisdictions is to apply a “floor stocks tax” to product that escaped tax as it came into inventory (and sits on the shelf or the floor).  See https://www.ttb.gov/tax_audit/floor-stocks-tax-faqs-answer.shtml.  California did not have a floor stocks tax, so had a short-term loophole.  Its effect will soon disappear.

II.  The 7.25% sales tax collected a lot compared to the 15% marijuana excise tax because the sales tax
1. includes pipes and t-shirts and so on;
2. is based on a real price, while the excise tax is often based on an artificial or phony price (the “average market price”) under California regs;
3. includes the 15% tax in the base (for an extra 1.0875% every time).

Continue reading “California cannabis tax collections explained.”

California released some info about cannabis tax collections May 11, 2018. I can’t figure some of it out. Questions below.

UPDATE: Dale Gieringer of California NORML answers, pointing out that most medical cannabis is not tax exempt. The only tax exemption is for product sold to patients who have bothered to get cards. So the sales tax figure is high because it includes sales of lots of medical cannabis. Few adult use licenses have been issued.

Continue reading “Confused by California marijuana tax receipts”

What’s wrong with taxing marketing expenses of opioid sellers?  The article suggesting that tax in the hill.com is posted below (exclusive license has expired).

Here are some possible objections:

1. The horse is out of barn – the problem is that this happened in the past. Most of the damage is done.

Response: Still, this works for the future.

2. My tax policy friends will almost all insist, in the name of theoretical purity, on taxing all income the same. They will say these are real expenses, and should be deductible.

Continue reading “Answering objections to a tax on opioid marketing”

UPDATED Below:

I’m to be on a marijuana revenue panel in Connecticut on Monday, April 30. The folks in Connecticut, like everyone else, want to know the bottom line. Whew. That leaves aside the preliminary and necessary questions of what to tax (weight or stated THC, I would say) and tax rates.

OK, jumping the preliminary issues, here’s a wild guess: $155 million a year after the market matures in several years. That’s $43 per inhabitant times 3.588 million population.

The $43 number comes from Colorado and Washington, which legalized two years before any other state. Both those maturing markets are collecting just about that much cannabis tax revenue now. Continue reading “Marijuana revenue — can any state get $43 per capita, like CO and WA?”

New York just started imposing an opioid “fee”; text of the law is here. That’s the fee or tax part of New York’s Opioid Stewardship Act, part of an omnibus health and mental hygiene Act, which is here. There is a lot of non-tax stuff in there

New York will collect  from opioid sellers every year $100 million (unindexed for inflation). Here’s how. After the year ends, all opioid manufacturers and distributors will report how many morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) they sold or distributed. Each seller’s fraction of the total amount of MMEs sold will be its fraction of the $100 million due.   Retailers ordinarily don’t pay tax, and cascading sales (where one product changes hands several times) are taxed only once.

There are three carve-outs.
Continue reading “New York State takes $100 million in tax or fee revenue from opioid sellers”

I’ve learned a lot from my friend Jon Caulkins, a drug policy expert and professor at Carnegie-Mellon (we were among eight co-authors on the RAND report for Vermont, and he’s helped and encouraged me over the years).  Jon worries about for-profit marijuana businesses, and prefers non-profit businesses. Fair enough, but let’s think about practicalities.

In an article in the National Review, “Against a Weed Industry,” Jon suggests, for the eight states where recreational cannabis is legal, “The Justice Department can simply send a letter warning that if the company does not shut down within a reasonable time, its owners will be arrested and its assets seized. . . . The Trump administration could phase out those for-profit businesses in favor of nonprofit organizations by issuing a new memo. . . . Shutting down state-licensed businesses could feed the black market, but not if nonprofit organizations are allowed to take their place.”

But I can’t see that happening. It would be very hard, politically and practically, to replace for-profit cannabis sellers “in favor of” non-profit sellers. Getting from here to there is not easy. Continue reading “Forced conversion of marijuana businesses to non-profit? I doubt it.”

OK, they call it a fee, but it looks like a tax to me.  New York is collecting $100 million from opioid sellers -- with a few exemptions, like for Hospice use.

Here's the law:  http://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=S07507&term=2017&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Text=Y, mentioned to me by Katherine "KT" Kramer of ASTHO.
 Continue reading "New York State’s $100 Million Opioid . . . Tax"