Cannabis Is Making Colorado So Much Money They Literally Have To Give Some Back To Residents
Options
MrCrookedLetter
Members Posts: 22,376 ✭✭✭✭✭
Colorado is making so much money with cannabis sales that they literally have to give some of it back to residents. So proclaimed a recent AP story by Kristen Wyatt on the booming cannabis industry in the Rocky Mountain state.
The voter-approved law that made cannabis legal in the state was designed to put tax revenues towards schools and other state programs, but an existing state law may send some of the money directly back to residents.
As Wyatt describes it in her piece, the law is causing “quite a headache for lawmakers.”
Colorado’s state constitution sets a limit on how much tax money the state can take in before it has to give some back to the residents. In 1992, Colorado’s voters approved the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment mandating that all new taxes appear before voters. It states that the state of Colorado must pay back taxpayers “when the state collects more than what’s permitted by a formula based on inflation and population growth. Over the years, Colorado has issued refunds six times, totaling more than $3.3 billion,” Wyatt reports.
“That means Coloradans may each get their own cut of the $50 million in recreational ? taxes collected in the first year of legal weed. It’s a situation so bizarre that it’s gotten Republicans and Democrats, for once, to agree on a tax issue,” Wyatt writes.
Because there is so much tax revenue, and tax collections in Colorado are rapidly increasing, the governor’s budget writers predict roughly $30.5 million will go back to individual residents (about $7.63 per adult in Colorado.)
Both political parties agree there’s “no good reason” to put cannabis dollars back into voter’s pockets, and lawmakers are scrambling to figure out how to avoid it.
That would most likely require asking residents to vote themselves out of the extra cash, by voting to exempt cannabis taxes from the refund requirement.
Lawmakers will have to figure out if the refund money would go to all taxpayers, or just people who purchased cannabis.
In the past, refunds have been paid through income tax returns, as Wyatt notes, “but Colorado also has reduced motor vehicle fees or even reduced sales taxes on trucks… Lawmakers seem confident that the refund mechanism won’t matter because voters would approve ? taxes a third time if asked.”
http://themindunleashed.org/2015/02/cannabis-making-colorado-much-money-literally-give-back-residents.html
Comments
-
Damn I bet they so happy and crimes are at a all time low over there im guessing.
-
MasterALFrank wrote: »Damn I bet they so happy and crimes are at a all time low over there im guessing.
Crimes are at an all time low, all over Murica' -
I wish our new ? ass Governor was down for the cause, that money from Medical Marijuana would help to get Chicago out of debt
-
The user and all related content has been deleted.
-
Just imagine how much money the government makes by locking up ? over it and why everyone else is having such a hard time legalizing it. But Colorado is definitely kicking it, I need to go out there one of these days.
-
Seattle and Colorado gonna be the spot to vacation when it's hot.get high and ? some hippy ? with their own house,cars and money
-
The user and all related content has been deleted.
-
MasterJayN100 wrote: »Seattle and Colorado gonna be the spot to vacation when it's hot.get high and ? some hippy ? with their own house,cars and money
Ill be in CO this summer, just an 8 hour drive -
yesssss!
-
? YOU CHRISTIE, this should of been us 3 years ago.
-
-
Wait till marijuana is legal everywhere.... THC was just the first phase, they will make it addictive & just as bad as cigarettes. There's a whole untapped market just urging to get government approval & start a new boom......
? !! -
yay!
-
I voted for Amendment 64 (on principal), but like everybody else from the city - I'm really over all these people moving here - these hipsters and these other lames, driving up the rents and exploding the homeless population.
I found out the other day that 1000 people move to Denver every week! It's insane. Traffic is NUTS, and dangerous. The Mexicans are ? . Black people have been pushed out almost completely, not that there were very many of us to begin with. And everyone you talk to is dumb as ? .
They need to legalize this ? nationwide, so we can get some of these fools to bounce. The city wasn't designed for this many people. That's all. -
Is weed still classified as a harder drug than coke, heroin, and ? ?
-
MasterJayN100 wrote: »Seattle and Colorado gonna be the spot to vacation when it's hot.get high and ? on some hippy ? with their own house,cars and money
-
Most states that were on the fence about this only needed to see the revenue that Colorado could bring in before they jumped on board.
State and federal govts can make more money off legal weed than they can by locking people up for selling weed. Besides that people still going to selling weed on the streets just like people still sell cigarettes on the street and people still making and selling moonshine for people who don't want to go to the liquor store.
The more ? changes the more ? stays the same.