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AirTalk

CA Board of Equalization wants illegal pot sellers to pony up on lost taxes

By AirTalk Staff
Published Jul 17, 2015
LOS ANGELES, CA - JULY 25: A budtender pours marijuana from a jar at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center medical marijuana dispensary, which opened in 2006, on July 25, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously voted to ban storefront medical marijuana dispensaries and to order them to close or face legal action. The council also voted to instruct staff to draw up a separate ordinance for consideration in about three months that might allow dispensaries that existed before a 2007 moratorium on new dispensaries to continue to operate. It is estimated that Los Angeles has about one thousand such facilities. The ban does not prevent patients or cooperatives of two or three people to grow their own in small amounts. Californians voted to legalize medical cannabis use in 1996, clashing with federal drug laws. The state Supreme Court is expected to consider ruling on whether cities can regulate and ban dispensaries. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
A budtender pours marijuana from a jar at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center medical marijuana dispensary, which opened in 2006, on July 25, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.
(
David McNew/Getty Images
)
Listen 15:09
CA Board of Equalization wants illegal pot sellers to pony up on lost taxes

The CA Board of Equalization (BOE), the state’s tax commission, is throwing its weight behind a plan aiming to get underground medical marijuana dispensaries to pay taxes.

Of the estimated 935 cannabis businesses operating in the City of Los Angeles, about 258 of them don’t have a BOE seller’s permit. Under the plan, BOE would work with these underground dispensaries to comply with state regulations and pay their taxes without receiving punishment.

How does the plan work? Why aren’t dispensaries paying their fair share of taxes? Would the plan work?

Guests: 

Jerome Horton, Chairman, California Board of Equalization, the state tax commission

David Welch, LA-based attorney working in the medical marijuana industry