Accounting Error Brings Tax-Free Pot Holiday

“It’s insane how much revenue our state used to flush down the drain by forcing marijuana sales into the underground market”, Tvert said.

The state’s financial year comes to a close on June 30, as such; certification of Colorado’s prior year’s tax revenue is absolute on September 15.

The final tax numbers cover the first full fiscal year in which adults over 21 could legally buy both marijuana and alcohol.

Colorado collected almost $70 million in marijuana taxes during that time, nearly double the $42 million collected from alcohol taxes.

The 2.9 percent tax is still standing, as well as local taxes imposed by the county or the city where the dispensary is located. In other words, alcohol likely produces more overall tax money than pot. That break will end January 4, when a 25 percent tax kicks in on recreational marijuana purchases.

Tim Cullen smiled when he reckoned a one-day marijuana tax holiday in Colorado had probably saved him tens of thousands of dollars.

While Colorado’s marijuana aficionados enjoy a short reprieve from taxes, Oregon’s recreational consumers will get three months of tax-free shopping once sales begin October 1. State lawmakers later chose to resurrect the marijuana taxes after a single day. After the permanent implementation of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) in 2005 voters must approve new taxes based on a formula based on state spending, collections, and population growth. It is also suspending a 15% excise tax on marijuana growers.

The Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area’s third-annual report showed 40 percent more school expulsions, majority marijuana related, since 2008; greater exposure of young children to the drug; a 2,000 percent increase in the number of Colorado mail parcels intercepted destined for other states; and 32 marijuana extraction lab explosions in 2014.

Economist Daniel Rees pointed out that beer sales growth didn’t keep up with population growth in the a year ago , estimated at about 1.7 percent between 2014 and 2015.

“I wouldn’t read too much into one state’s experience”, Rees said.