History made as legal, adult-use cannabis businesses pay first month’s sales taxes into state coffers

Governor’s budget projects $99M in adult-use sales taxes to be collected in 2014

DENVER – History will be made again today in Colorado as the state collects the first-ever tax revenues from the legal sale of adult-use marijuana. Today is the deadline for Colorado’s adult-use cannabis businesses to file sales taxes for January 2014, the first month of legal, retail marijuana sales in the nation.

Data on the sales tax revenue collected will not be available from the Colorado Department of Revenue until sometime in March. But yesterday, Governor John Hickenlooper announced an initial budget plan for adult-use marijuana sales tax revenues that assumes the state will collect approximately $99 million in 2014. Those sales tax revenues come on top of the revenues from a 15% excise tax on wholesale cannabis, which is earmarked specifically for school construction projects.

“This is a watershed day,” said NCIA executive director Aaron Smith. “Colorado voters led the world in supporting a legal, taxed, and regulated approach to cannabis, and now they’ll reap the benefits of a prosperous new industry and tax base.

“Today, our members in Colorado are proudly contributing to their communities like any other responsible business, and it’s a victory for the entire state. Elected leaders in other states and in Washington, D.C., ought to be taking note and moving federal policies into harmony with state law.”

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