Taxes | CalPotNews.com

Dispensary tax seminars set in Oakland, Seattle

Feb 022012

Has your medical cannabis business been targeted with an IRS notice or tax audit? If you haven’t been hit yet, YOU WILL! Harborside Health Center’s Stephen DeAngelo and the country’s leading tax experts on 280E will present effective strategies for dealing with current tax audits and for minimizing your 2012 tax liabilities. OAKLAND Saturday, February 25, 1 to 6 p.m. Main Ballroom (enter thru Just Dance) 2500 Embarcardero, Oakland, CA 94606 (Map) (Hotels/motels) (Restaurants) SEATTLE Saturday, March 10, 1 to 6 p.m. Courtyard Marriott 925 Westlake Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109 (Map) (Hotels/motels) (Restaurants) TELL [...]

372 L.A. dispensaries file tax papers with city

Dispensaries

Dec 022011

Los Angeles is home to more medical marijuana shops than any other city. That much is certain. And more are still opening. But how many there are is usually a guessing game. Now, however, the city has a new number: 372. That’s how many filed forms with the city’s office of finance by the Oct. 31 deadline in preparation for paying the new pot tax, the Los Angeles Times reports. But that’s probably not the total number of marijuana businesses in the city. That’s just the number that want to be seen as playing by [...]

Sacramento freezes dispensary permits, extends deadlines

Dispensaries

Nov 162011

With legal uncertainty swirling around the issue, the city of Sacramento formally entered a holding pattern on its issuance of medical marijuana permits Tuesday night in a move that advocates said could help save the industry in the city. Last month, City Manager John Shirey ordered a “temporary freeze” on new permits for medical marijuana dispensaries as federal authorities launched a series of crackdowns on the facilities around the state. At least three Sacramento dispensaries have been investigated by federal drug enforcement agents, Ryan Lillis reports in the Sacramento Bee. At the same time, a [...]

Cannabis contributions to Redding’s economy unknown

Marijuana News

Oct 162011

To hear medical marijuana advocates and insiders tell it, businesses associated with the north state’s medical marijuana trade have gotten a boost — or are outright booming — in the middle of the Great Recession. They worry the crackdown that federal authorities started this month on medical marijuana growers and sellers might bring further economic woes to an area already suffering from double-digit unemployment rates, flat sales taxes and a rash of vacant retail buildings. The problem is no one — from city and state officials to economists and business experts — really knows just [...]

Harborside Health Center hit with big IRS tax bill

Dispensaries

Oct 052011

A leading Oakland marijuana dispensary was hit with a $2.5 million tax bill this week, which may force its closure, dispensary staff said Tuesday. Harborside Health Center owes the Internal Revenue Service back taxes for 2007 and 2008, based on a federal law prohibiting marijuana dispensaries – unlike other businesses – from deducting payroll, insurance, rent, workers’ compensation and other operating costs from its revenues. “We think this assessment is unfair and inaccurate. We have no choice but to fight this,” said Harborside executive director Steve DeAngelo. “I’m profoundly concerned on behalf of our patients.” [...]

San Jose nets $290K in first dispensary tax report

Dispensaries

May 152011

For the last couple of years, medical marijuana has been a booming business in San Jose, but now it’s also a promising new source of tax revenue, according to new figures released by the city’s finance department. San Jose officials say the city’s medical marijuana collectives paid $290,000 in the first month the city levied a 7 percent tax on businesses selling the drug, John Woolfolk reports in the San Jose Mercury Register. Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio, who has led the city effort to regulate and tax medical marijuana collectives, called it a positive sign for [...]

Humboldt residents pitch MMJ-themed ‘Emerald City’

Marijuana News

May 122011

A group of Southern Humboldt residents are hoping to capture the independent spirit of the area by creating a city that utilizes revenues from the local marijuana industry. Jim Lamport, a legal document assistant with Lamport Legal Documents in Garberville, said the Humboldt Emerald City Organizing Group is holding an information fundraiser Sunday for the formation of the aptly named Emerald City. The event, which Lamport said begins around 1 p.m. at the Beginnings Octagon in Briceland, aims to inform the public while raising money to pay for the incorporation process. Lamport said the move [...]

Cannabis tax study passes state Senate committee

Marijuana News

May 072011

State lawmakers Wednesday took a step toward possibly licensing and taxing medical marijuana sales in California, despite objections that such sales are not sanctioned by federal law. A bill that would have the state Board of Equalization study ways to tax and license the sale of medical marijuana was approved by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee on a 5-2 vote, the Los Angeles Times reports. Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), author of SB 626, said the cash-strapped state was missing out on potentially tens of millions of dollars from the sales. “There is a real [...]

L.A. voters pass tax on cannabis dispensaries

Dispensaries, Marijuana News

Mar 102011

As the city council in California’s largest city seeks to shutter scores of medical marijuana dispensaries, Los Angeles voters just issued a resounding declaration: If you can’t close ‘em, tax ‘em. Fifty-nine percent of voters approved Los Angeles’ “‘M’ for marijuana” Measure M, allowing the city to impose a 5 percent tax on gross dispensary receipts — on top of sales taxes they must pay to the state, Peter Hecht reports in the Sacramento Bee. Los Angeles Times election coverage While pot taxes have been endorsed by many dispensaries and medical marijuana advocates as a [...]

L.A. collectives campaign against dispensary tax

Dispensaries, Marijuana News

Mar 072011

When Oakland’s voters slapped the nation’s first tax on marijuana sales a year and a half ago, the city’s dispensaries backed the ballot measure, pushing it as a way to be seen as legitimate businesses. And when voters in 10 California cities decided on pot taxes in November, the elections were largely uncontroversial. The taxes all passed by more than two-thirds, John Hoeffel reports in the Los Angeles Times. But in Los Angeles, where voters decide Tuesday whether to create a pot tax, medical marijuana activists who once urged City Hall to tax and regulate [...]