Los Angeles Could Tax Medical Marijuana If Voters Approve In March
Do you want your pot taxed?
L.A. wants to tax you, bud.
That's a question you'll be asked on the March ballot, thanks to an L.A. City Council vote Wednesday. The body is trying to raise money in an era of red ink, and taxing weed could bring an extra $3 to $5 million a year to City Hall.
The tax would charge dispensary owners $50 for every $1,000 worth of bud sold. Would that cost be passed on to you, the faithful "medical" patient? It's up to the store owners.
The office of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has stated that taxing pot shops isn't kosher because they're supposed to be nonprofit operations under state law (and "taxing nonprofits" is somewhat of an oxymoron).
But the council, channeling the inner genius we all know is there, simply wrote around the legal reality of the situation, voting that people are simply forking over "reimbursements" to their friendly storefront supplier.
How that goes around the fact that many if not most of these places are businesses and not nonprofit collectives, as state law intended, is beyond us.
Let's just hope this tax, if you approve it, doesn't end up in court like the council's last pot-shop law.
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