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Marijuana business leaders are not optimistic that federal rescheduling will happen this year\u2014though 97 percent said the reform and the resulting federal tax relief are \u201cimportant\u201d to their \u201clong-term viability\u201d\u2014according to a new poll.<\/p>\n
Shield Compliance, which provides compliance management solutions for banks serving the legal cannabis industry, released the results of its 2025 Financial Services Survey on Wednesday, highlighting the \u201cbanking experiences and priorities\u201d of state-licensed marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n
Notably, the poll asked about the pending federal marijuana reclassification proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) that President Donald Trump recently said his administration will decide on imminently.<\/p>\n
When asked to rate the prospects that rescheduling would be achieved this year on a scale from 0 to 100, the average response was just 34.<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s in spite of the fact that the vast majority of respondents (about 97 percent) said that rescheduling\u2014and the resulting federal tax relief\u2014say the reforms are \u201cimportant\u201d to the \u201clong-term viability\u201d of their businesses.<\/p>\n
That includes 61 percent who described them as \u201cextremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The survey also showed that, while many marijuana businesses have struggled to access financial services under federal prohibition, most of those that have are evidently satisfied with their current providers, with more than 80 percent reporting satisfaction with their customer service and over 70 percent saying they\u2019re content with compliance requirements.<\/p>\n
Through there is that level of satisfaction, the poll, which had 142 respondents, also found that more than 60 percent of cannabis operators are eager for innovation around payment solutions. And almost 30 percent said they\u2019re considering switching financial institutions next year to obtain access to credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe survey results highlight a paradox in cannabis banking,\u201d Tony Repanich, president and CEO of Shield Compliance, said<\/a> in a press release. \u201cOperators value their banking relationships yet demand for credit access and payments innovation underscores significant opportunities for financial institutions ready to lean in, particularly as the creditworthiness of operators improves with market consolidation and regulatory reform.\u201d<\/p>\n But the broader issue of banking challenges in the marijuana industry persists. And while rescheduling would mean that the sector would no longer be prohibited from taking federal tax deductions under an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E, that wouldn\u2019t resolve the underlying banking issue.<\/p>\n To that end, a bipartisan coalition of 32 state and territory attorneys general from across the U.S. recently called on Congress to pass a marijuana banking bill to free up financial services access<\/a> for licensed cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Democratic Senate sponsor of the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act recently said that, despite efforts to coordinate meetings around the legislation, other priorities have taken precedence for now<\/a>.<\/p>\n Asked about recent comments Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)\u2014the lead GOP sponsor of the SAFER Banking Act this session who told Marijuana Moment that\u00a0he doesn\u2019t expect the bill to come up until this fall<\/a>\u2014Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said, \u201cHopefully sooner than later in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n In January, the office of Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), who is again leading the effort on the House said, told Marijuana Moment that he would be filing the\u00a0cannabis banking legislation this session but that its introduction was \u201cnot imminent\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as some earlier reports had suggested.<\/p>\n \u2014 A leading anti-marijuana group recently sounded the alarm about a possible attempt to\u00a0put the cannabis banking measure in a cryptocurrency bill<\/a>\u00a0that was advancing on the Senate floor, but that didn\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n With Republicans in control of both chambers and key leadership positions filled by opponents of marijuana legalization, it\u2019s been an open question about whether any cannabis reform legislation stands a chance of passage in the short-term. That\u2019s despite the fact that Trump endorsed marijuana industry banking access, rescheduling and a Florida legalization initiative on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n On the House side, a Republican lawmaker said in March\u00a0he\u2019s hopeful that Congress will be able to get a marijuana banking bill across \u201cthe finish line\u201d<\/a>\u00a0this session, arguing that the current barriers to financial services for the industry represent a \u201csecond tier\u201d of prohibition.<\/p>\n Cannabis industry banking challenges came up in several congressional hearings in March,\u00a0including a Senate Banking Committee meeting on debanking<\/a>\u00a0where senators on both sides of the aisle addressed the lack of financial services access for marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in January congressional researchers released a report detailing the subject of debanking\u2014while making a point to address how\u00a0the marijuana industry\u2019s financial services access problem \u201csits at the nexus\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of a state-federal policy conflict that complicates the debate.<\/p>\n Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced in December that it\u2019s\u00a0convening focus groups comprised of marijuana businesses<\/a>\u00a0to better understand their experiences with access to banking services under federal prohibition.<\/p>\n The post Marijuana Business Leaders Not Optimistic Rescheduling Will Happen This Year, Despite 97% Saying It\u2019s \u2018Important\u2019 To Their Viability, Poll Shows<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Marijuana business leaders are not optimistic that federal rescheduling will happen this year\u2014though 97 percent said the reform and the resulting federal tax relief are \u201cimportant\u201d to their \u201clong-term viability\u201d\u2014according to a new poll. Shield Compliance, which provides compliance management solutions for banks serving the legal cannabis industry, released theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":83090,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1335,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83089"}],"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=83089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83091,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83089\/revisions\/83091"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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