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The California Senate has approved an Assembly-passed bill put a pause on a recently enacted tax hike on marijuana products<\/a>.<\/p>\n About a week after the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared the legislation from Assemblymember Matt Haney (D), the full chamber passed it on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Because it was amended, the measure must return to the Assembly for concurrence before it\u2019s potentially sent to the governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n If enacted into law, the bill would pause the tax increase for five years. Lawmakers have until September 12 to give final passage to legislation before the end of the session, and the governor will have until October 12 to take action on any measures sent to his desk.<\/p>\n Sen. Christopher Cabaldon (D) said ahead of the Senate vote that the marijuana legalization law approved by California voters had several goals, including to \u201cshut down the illicit market\u201d and \u201csupport a wide variety of environmental, social and educational programs\u201d with tax revenue.<\/p>\n \u201cThat deal is fraying because the market is collapsing,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, legal businesses in California capture just 40 percent of the cannabis market. Sixty percent is in the illicit market, subject to no protections for consumers or for the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornia is losing ground other states,\u201d Cabaldon said. \u201cMichigan, Oregon and others are raking in much more tax revenue and are doing a much better job at stopping illicit sales. And so this isn\u2019t the time to be raising the tax by 25 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Jerry McNerney (D) added that \u201cwe want to control and contain and reduce the illegal market.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRaising taxes right now is going to have an opposite effect,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to drive people into the illegal black market on cannabis, which is a bad outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n An amendment adopted during a prior Senate panel stop would make it so the effective date would be in October, rather than immediately. The tax hike itself officially took effect last month.<\/p>\n State officials announced in June that the cannabis excise tax rate would increase from 15 percent to 19 percent on July 1, and advocates held out hope that pending budget legislation would be amended to mirror Haney\u2019s standalone bill. That didn\u2019t come to fruition.<\/p>\n The passage of an earlier budget bill that Haney\u2019s measure responds to came despite Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s (D) support for including a tax freeze in the trailer bill. Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D) also backed the delay, but\u00a0Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire (D) reportedly blocked it<\/a>\u00a0from the budget legislation.<\/p>\n Under Haney\u2019s bill,\u00a0which advanced through the Assembly in June<\/a>, the delayed implementation wouldn\u2019t take effect until October. Advocates wanted to see it included in the separate, recently enacted budget legislation because it would\u2019ve taken effect upon enactment.<\/p>\n Before arriving at the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, the legislation\u2019s pause of the cannabis tax increase would have been in effect until June 30, 2030. After that, on a biennial basis, regulators would adjust the tax rate \u201cby a percentage that will generate an amount of revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax imposed prior to its discontinuation, as specified, not to exceed 19 percent,\u201d according to a summary.<\/p>\n The Appropriations Committee, however, moved to \u201cshorten the period that the 15 percent tax rate would be in effect, and add a reporting requirement,\u201d according to the chair. It\u2019s not clear what the new timeline would be, however, as revised bill text is not yet available.<\/p>\n Haney\u2019s proposal would make it so the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA), working with the Department of Finance, would be required to \u201cadjust the cannabis excise tax rate upon purchasers of cannabis or cannabis products\u201d based on the \u201cadditional percentage of the gross receipts of any retail sale by a cannabis retailer that the department estimates will generate an amount of revenue equivalent to the amount that would have been collected in the previous fiscal year,\u201d the\u00a0text<\/a>\u00a0says.<\/p>\n The department would need to \u201cestimate the amount of revenue that would have been collected in the previous fiscal year pursuant to the weight-based cultivation tax\u201d and \u201cestimate this amount by projecting the revenue from weight-based cultivation taxes that would have been collected in the previous calendar year based on information available to the department.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe specific goal of the cannabis excise tax rate reduction is to provide immediate tax relief to the cannabis industry,\u201d the measure states. \u201cThe efficacy of this goal may be measured by the Legislature by the amount of gain or loss in cannabis excise tax revenues resulting from the cannabis excise tax rate reduction allowed by this act.\u201d<\/p>\n It also\u00a0mandates\u00a0that CDTFA, on or before December 1, 2026 and each subsequent year the California \u201csubmit a report to the Legislature\u2026detailing the amount of gain or loss in cannabis excise tax revenues resulting from the cannabis excise tax rate reduction allowed by this act.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 The Senate Appropriations Committee last week also unanimously passed legislation<\/a>\u00a0to integrate hemp-derived cannabinoid products into the state\u2019s medical and adult-use marijuana program, while banning synthetically derived cannabinoids. The panel adopted amendments to the bill \u201cto delete excise tax provisions, to revise and change definitions, to create a pathway for topical hemp salves and clarify and change requirements and prohibitions regarding industrial hemp and hemp-derived cannabinoids,\u201d according to the committee chair.<\/p>\n The panel additionally approved a\u00a0measure<\/a>\u00a0to amend the state\u2019s cannabis law to make it so cannabis microbusinesses with a license to ship products directly to patients, with amendments.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, California officials are inviting research proposals for a second round of grants under a program meant to\u00a0better educate the public on the state\u2019s marijuana law<\/a>\u00a0and help policymakers make informed decisions on the issue.<\/p>\n In June, the Governor\u2019s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz)\u00a0announced the recipients of over $52 million in community reinvestment grants<\/a>\u00a0to nonprofits and local health departments, also funded by marijuana tax revenue.<\/p>\n That marked the\u00a0seventh round of cannabis-funded California Community Reinvestment Grants (CalCRG)<\/a>\u00a0under the state program.<\/p>\n Legalization in California has created a number of new grant programs aimed at addressing the consequences of marijuana prohibition and attempting to nurture a strong, well-regulated legal industry.<\/p>\n California\u2019s Supreme Court separately delivered a victory for the state\u2019s marijuana program<\/a>\u00a0in June, rescinding a lower court ruling in a case that suggested federal prohibition could be used locally to undermine the cannabis market.<\/p>\n The state Supreme Court ruling also came just weeks after California officials unveiled a\u00a0report on the current status and future of the state\u2019s marijuana market<\/a>\u2014with independent analysts hired by regulators concluding that the federal prohibition on cannabis that prevents interstate commerce is meaningfully bolstering the illicit market.<\/p>\n The governor did sign a bill in 2022 that would have\u00a0empowered him to enter into interstate cannabis commerce agreements<\/a>\u00a0with other legal states, but that power was incumbent upon federal guidance or an assessment from the state attorney general that sanctioned such activity.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a California Senate committee recently declined to advance a bipartisan bill that would have\u00a0created a psilocybin pilot program for military veterans and former first responders<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post California Senate Passes Bill To Delay Marijuana Tax Hike That Already Cleared Assembly In Earlier Form<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The California Senate has approved an Assembly-passed bill put a pause on a recently enacted tax hike on marijuana products. About a week after the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared the legislation from Assemblymember Matt Haney (D), the full chamber passed it on Wednesday. Because it was amended, the measure mustContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":83203,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202"}],"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=83202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83204,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83202\/revisions\/83204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: California Senate Passes Bill To Delay Marijuana Tax Hike That Already Cleared Assembly In Earlier Form<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"