O<\/span>ctober\u2019s Northern California wildfires, the worst in state history by a wide margin, killed more than 40 people and destroyed more than 5,000 homes. The fires also wiped out as much as $60 million worth of the state\u2019s annual marijuana harvest, according to an estimate from the California Growers Association, a statewide pot farmers\u2019 lobby.<\/p>\n Very little of the damage to cannabis farmers\u2019<\/a> homes and livelihoods \u2014 if any \u2014 will be made whole by insurance or disaster relief funding. Risk-averse insurance agencies have chosen to steer clear<\/a> of the marijuana industry, and federal money made available to fire victims won\u2019t be extended to stewards of federally illegal crops like cannabis.<\/p>\n However, cannabis farmers may still owe taxes, even on crops turned to ash before they ever reached the market.<\/p>\n Wildfires are a way of life in California \u2014 which, at an estimated 13.5 million pounds<\/a> grown in 2016, is also the country\u2019s biggest producer of marijuana. Wildfires burnt out cannabis growers in Calaveras County in 2015, and wildfires struck Humboldt County, in the state\u2019s legendary Emerald Triangle, in 2008. As wildfires of the type that burned Sonoma and Napa counties earlier this year become more likely and more severe thanks to climate change<\/a>, the likelihood that another fire will strike a marijuana-growing region is near-certain.<\/p>\n But as the Nevada County, California-based newspaper The Union\u00a0is reporting<\/a>, local and state authorities may still stick growers burnt out by wildfires with cultivation tax bills.<\/p>\n In addition to a 15 percent excise tax and a $9.25 per ounce cultivation tax levied by the state, Nevada City is proposing a tax ranging from $1 to $4 per square foot on marijuana grows, a so-called \u201ccanopy tax.\u201d Canopy taxes are proving popular among cities and counties around the state looking to use marijuana cultivation to grow their budgets \u2014 but, as marijuana advocates point out, they can place an unfair burden on growers, who will owe taxes even if they don\u2019t record any earnings.<\/p>\n \u201cHow fair is it to tax something you\u2019re not even being compensated for?\u201d asked Jonathan Collier.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Collier, who sits on the executive committee of the Nevada County Cannabis Alliance, told The Union, \u201c[T]he whole model is flawed.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear how many cannabis grows are currently operating inside the limits of Nevada City \u2014 a small, quaint town in the foothills popular with artists and urban expatriates for its bucolic setting and well-preserved Gold Rush-era buildings. The problem, Collier told the newspaper, would be other counties or cities with robust cultivation industries following suit and passing their own version of a cultivation tax that would be due regardless of what happened to the crops.<\/p>\n Much fairer and more reasonable, Collier says, is a tax based on gross receipts or sales. Or an exemption, perhaps, in the case of fire, flood, theft, or other disaster beyond a grower\u2019s ken.<\/p>\n So far, the trend is not in towards a grower-friendly direction. In fall 2016, a year after marijuana operations in Calaveras County burned,\u00a0politicians put before voters a tax proposal <\/a>that would have charged burnt-out farms\u00a0$2 per square foot for the privilege. The tax didn\u2019t pass, but it appears law and policy makers have a formula for squeezing money out of cannabis growers in mind \u2014 and it guarantees a cash flow towards government regardless of whether the growers are generating revenue.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> what do you think about canopy taxes?<\/p>\n The post Canopy Taxes: When Cannabis Growers Are Taxed For Ruined Crops<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Many municipalities looking to capitalize on the cannabis industry have considered or passed \u201ccanopy taxes,\u201d which levy taxes on cannabis growers up front for their crops \u2014 no matter what happens to the plants before harvest and sale. October\u2019s Northern California wildfires, the worst in state history by a wideContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,5,306,153,1961],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21506,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21505\/revisions\/21506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Canopy Taxes: When Cannabis Growers Are Taxed For Ruined Crops<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"