Legal Cannabis Companies Pay Insane Tax Rates Thanks To A Minnesota Speed Dealer
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Tax Burden: state legal cannabis companies pay under a tax code created to discourage illegal drug trafficking.
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In 1975, Jeffrey Edmondson, a drug dealer based in Minneapolis, filed his taxes. As a self-employed man in the illicit drug trade, he had a good year he sold 1.1 million amphetamine pills, five ounces of cocaine, and 100 pounds of marijuana. And like any other God-fearing, tax-paying American business owner, he wanted to deduct standard business expenses.
On his tax return, Edmondson recorded $105,300 in costs related to selling speed, weed, and coke during the taxable year of 1974. He also itemized two-thirds of the 29,000 miles he put on his car that year, $250 for a flight to San Diego, and $200 for food and entertainment expenses during a business trip. There was also $50 for a scale, $200 for packaging supplies, and $180 in long distance phone calls. Since Ed
Trulieve Cannabis buys Keystone Shops for $60 million, latest deal in Pa. land rush for weed retailers
Updated 9:36 AM;
By Erin Arvedlund, of The Philadelphia Inquirer
Trulieve Cannabis Corp. became the latest out-of-state marijuana company to snap up weed retailers in Pennsylvania, with the $60 million purchase of Keystone Shops.
The move signals a bet from an increasing number of companies in the marijuana sector that Pennsylvania will follow in the footsteps of neighboring New York and New Jersey and legalize recreational use.
“Stand-alone dispensaries have become the belle of the ball,” said Steve Schain, senior counsel at cannabis law firm Hoban Law Group. Amid New Jersey and New York’s legalization of adult-use marijuana, “the writing is on the wall” in Pennsylvania, Schain said. “The land grab is underway.”
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2019’s overproduction is under the bridge. The USDA has weighed in, largely but not entirely positively. The FDA’s slow walk stands in the way.
Peaks and valleys. Booms and busts. Hemp and in particular its supplement darling cannabinoid called cannabidiol, or CBD has been on a wild ride since the 2014 farm bill gave it an opening to the market.
After the next farm bill was signed in December 2018, the next year was going to be a boom year. Hemp acreage planted shot up from 77,000 acres to close to half a million. Maybe it had too much too fast, but that was far too much hemp to accommodate even the booming CBD market. Prices crashed and the industry experienced the great storage experiment.