The secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday that freeing up banks to work with state-legal marijuana businesses would \u201cof course\u201d make the Internal Revenue Service\u2019s (IRS) job of collecting taxes easier.<\/p>\n
At a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) referenced recent comments from an IRS official<\/a> about the \u201cspecial type of collection challenge the IRS undertakes regarding tax collection from cannabis-related businesses forced to operate in cash only.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you agree if these business were simply allowed to access the banking system and didn\u2019t have to transact business only in cash it would make the IRS job easier?\u201d Perlmutter asked Secretary Janet Yellen.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, of course it would,\u201d she replied matter-of-factly.<\/p>\n HAPPENING NOW: @SecYellen<\/a> agrees allowing cannabis businesses to access the banking system would help the IRS do their job and enable them to better collect taxes from the industry. #SAFEBanking<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/w23GdFPQFy<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Rep. Ed Perlmutter (@RepPerlmutter) December 1, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The congressman also talked about his bill\u2014the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act\u2014which has passed the House in some form five times now and would resolve the issue by protecting financial institutions that service state-legal cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n Numerous financial, labor and insurance associations, as well as key lawmakers, are pushing the Senate to attach the measure<\/a> to must-pass defense spending legislation, as the House already has. Bipartisan members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as senators representing Colorado<\/a>, made the same request in recent letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Yellen\u2019s response<\/a> was quick, it\u2019s yet another example of a federal official recognizing the untenability of the status quo.<\/p>\n\n Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary under the Trump administration, repeatedly addressed the issue<\/a>, saying the current policy conflict creates \u201csignificant problems\u201d for IRS and financial regulators. It \u201ccreates significant risk in the communities for collecting this amount of cash. It\u2019s problematic,\u201d he said last year.<\/p>\n IRS, for its part, said in September that it expects the cannabis market to continue to grow, and it offered some tips to businesses<\/a>\u00a0on staying compliant with taxes while the plant remains federally prohibited.<\/p>\n With respect to the SAFE Banking Act, a bipartisan coalition of two dozen governors recently implored congressional leaders to finally enact marijuana banking reform<\/a>\u00a0through the large-scale defense legislation.<\/p>\n A group of small marijuana business owners also recently made the case that the incremental banking policy change\u00a0could actually help support social equity efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rodney Hood, a board member of the National Credit Union Administration,\u00a0wrote in a recent Marijuana Moment op-ed<\/a>\u00a0that legalization is an inevitability\u2014and it makes the most sense for government agencies to get ahead of the policy change to resolve banking complications now.<\/p>\n Federal data shows that\u00a0many financial institutions remain hesitant<\/a>\u00a0to take on cannabis companies as clients, however, which is likely due to the fact that the plant is a strictly controlled substance under federal law.<\/p>\n Texas Activists Turn In Signatures To Put Marijuana Decriminalization On Austin\u2019s 2022 Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Biden Treasury Secretary Says \u2018Of Course\u2019 Marijuana Banking Would Make IRS\u2019s Job Easier<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday that freeing up banks to work with state-legal marijuana businesses would \u201cof course\u201d make the Internal Revenue Service\u2019s (IRS) job of collecting taxes easier. At a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) referenced recent commentsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51486"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51487,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51486\/revisions\/51487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Biden Treasury Secretary Says \u2018Of Course\u2019 Marijuana Banking Would Make IRS\u2019s Job Easier<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"