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At least one Vermont store will have adult-use cannabis sales beginning on Oct. 1: CeresMED in Burlington. Several more retailers are expected to quickly follow.

According to a news release from SLANG Worldwide (CNSX: SLNG) (OTCQB: SLGWF), its subsidiary CeresMED will launch recreational marijuana sales at its 190 College Street location on Oct. 1.

That will make the store SLANG’s fourth cannabis shop in the state, along with its three medical dispensaries in South Burlington, Middlebury and Brattleboro, which it acquired last year when it bought Hi Fidelity, which runs the Ceres Collaborative cannabis group.

Vermont is the 15th U.S. state marijuana market that SLANG has entered so far, according to the release.

CeresMED may be the first to open, but it won’t be the last. Other stores plan on launching as soon as they can get their affairs in order, the Burlington Free Press reported.

Burlington retailers Bern Gallery, Green State Gardener, Green Leaf Central and Grass Queen all hope to open in coming weeks or months. Magic Mann in Essex is aiming for October still, the Free Press reported.

The state also granted retail permits to Mountain Girl in Rutland and FLORA Cannabis in Middlebury.

In addition, the new market is attracting out-of-state interest from companies such as Massachusetts-based Theory Wellness, which said in a press release Thursday that it plans to enter the market via an acquisition in Brattleboro.

Though Theory’s location is still under construction and an opening date hasn’t been announced, the company said it expects to open this autumn.

The post Vermont Recreational Cannabis Sales Will Launch Oct. 1 in Burlington appeared first on Green Market Report.

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Colorado and Washington State took in more revenue from marijuana sales than from either alcohol or cigarettes in Fiscal Year 2022, according to a new report.

Another eight states saw tax revenue from cannabis outpace cigarettes, while Nevada took in more from marijuana than alcohol.

The analysis, published by the Tax Policy Center on Wednesday, provides a comprehensive overview of the various tax models, revenue data and debates over the most effective tax regimes in states that have legalized cannabis.

Here's highlights of what they found. First, states and localities tax marijuana by weight, sales price, potency, or some combination. pic.twitter.com/uXX91muaAq

— Tax Policy Center (@TaxPolicyCenter) September 28, 2022

Researchers Richard Auxier and Nikhita Airi said that while it’s difficult to draw generalizations about marijuana tax policy given the patchwork of state and local tax models, there are several trends that have arisen since jurisdictions started implementing legalization. One of those trends is that, as cannabis markets have expanded, the plant is often eclipsing alcohol and cigarettes in terms of revenue it generates for tax coffers.

In Fiscal Year 2022, Colorado collected $353.7 million in marijuana tax dollars, just barely edging out cigarette tax revenue but nearly seven times more than what the state generated from alcohol excise taxes.

Washington State, meanwhile, took in $517 million in cannabis taxes, compared to about $490 million from alcohol and $380 from cigarettes.

This is all the more notable considering that tax revenue declined significantly in both Colorado and Washington State from the 2021 to 2022 fiscal year, at -14 percent and -7 percent, respectively.

The type of tax should align with the state's goals. Some taxes maximize revenue, while others, such as a tax based on potency, are meant to discourage the use of more potent products. pic.twitter.com/BRpm4LYFep

— Tax Policy Center (@TaxPolicyCenter) September 28, 2022

“Broadly speaking, the experience of Colorado and Washington demonstrate that a state can collect a significant amount of revenue from marijuana taxes and that collection should mostly increase over time,” the report says.

The analysis further says that, “Among all 11 states that collected cannabis tax revenue for the entire 2022 fiscal year, eight collected more revenue from cannabis taxes than alcohol taxes.” And in addition to Colorado and Washington State, Nevada also brought in more from marijuana than cigarettes.

While the report looks at the full fiscal year totals, there are other examples of marijuana tax revenue beating out alcohol and tobacco in legal states over certain months or other periods of time.

In Arizona, for instance, the state generated more tax revenue to the general fund from legal marijuana sales than from tobacco and alcohol combined in March.

Massachusetts is collecting more tax revenue from marijuana than alcohol, state data released in January shows. As of December 2021, the state took in $51.3 million from alcohol taxes and $74.2 million from cannabis at the halfway point of the fiscal year.

Illinois also saw cannabis taxes beat out booze for the first time last year, with the state collecting about $100 million more from adult-use marijuana than alcohol during 2021.

In April, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released an analysis that looked at 11 states that have legalized marijuana for adult use and found that, on average, “cannabis revenues outperformed alcohol by 20 percent” in 2021.

Advocates and stakeholders have touted these data points. Not only do they underscore the economic opportunity of legalization, but the hope is that providing regulated access to cannabis means fewer people will use more dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco.

A study published earlier this year found that marijuana legalization is associated with decreased use of alcohol, nicotine and non-prescription opioids among young adults.

More than twice as many Americans think that cannabis has a positive impact on its consumers and society at large than say the same about alcohol, a Gallup poll that was released last month found.

That’s generally consistent with the results of a separate poll released in March that found more Americans think it’d be good if people switched to cannabis and drank less alcohol compared to those who think the substance substitution would be bad.

USDA Touts Economic And Environmental Benefits Of Hemp As European Market Expands

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“Mainers, regardless of political affiliation, education, employment, religion—all those demographics—they want a new drug policy approach.”

By Evan Popp, Maine Beacon

As the opioid epidemic continues to grip Maine, a survey released Tuesday shows that Mainers support prioritizing treatment for people who use drugs over punishment and incarceration, which advocates and medical experts have long argued doesn’t work.

The survey, developed by University of Maine professors Robert Glover and Karyn Sporer and put into the field in the summer of 2021, found that 74 percent of people support decriminalizing drugs by diverting people with substance use disorder out of the criminal justice system for low-level non-violent offenses and toward community-based programs that aid with recovery. Support was seen regardless of party affiliation in the survey.

The poll was administered online to 417 Mainers across demographic lines from July to August of 2021. The margin of error is +/-4.8 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence level.

The findings—which are the first-ever comprehensive survey of Mainers’ views on drug policy—comes as the state continues to struggle with the overdose epidemic. Maine experienced a record number of overdose deaths in 2021—636—and is on pace to surpass that number by the end of this year, according to data from the first five months of 2022.

Given that situation, advocates have continued to argue that the decades-long “War on Drugs” strategy of incarcerating people who use substances clearly hasn’t worked and has resulted in deaths that could have been avoided. In a direct challenge to that punitive approach, the Maine recovery community in 2021 advanced LD 967, a bill to decriminalize drugs and focus instead on treatment programs. The measure passed the House but died in the state Senate amid opposition from Republicans and some Democrats, including Gov. Janet Mills. As seen by the survey, though, a strong majority of Mainers support diverting people who use drugs away from the criminal justice system, as called for by LD 967.

Professor Rob Glover and UMaine Sociology Professor Karyn Sporer were in the media yesterday for statewide research they conducted on Mainers' support for drug decriminalization. See a round-up at the UMaine News link below. https://t.co/wWKgxHeZEA

— UMainePoliSci (@UMainePoliSci) September 28, 2022

In 2022, the recovery community continued to propose reforms and succeeded in pushing a bill through the legislature that strengthened the state’s “Good Samaritan law,” which provides protections for people at the scene of an overdose. After some negotiations, Mills signed the bill into law.

Along with an overall emphasis on recovery, the UMaine professors’ survey also found an overwhelming majority of Mainers support funding easy-to-access detox services in every county (84 percent), reducing barriers to accessing substance use treatment (84 percent), establishing medication assisted treatment in every county (77 percent), expanding access to case management services (84 percent), and funding local recovery community centers (84 percent).

There was also strong support (73 percent) for ensuring that people in jails and prisons still have access to treatment for substance use disorder.

Researchers said the results of the survey show Mainers are ready for a different approach to drug use.

“We saw really striking support for alternatives to criminalization,” Glover said during a press conference Tuesday in which he and Sporer presented their findings.

“Mainers, regardless of political affiliation, education, employment, religion—all those demographics—they want a new drug policy approach. It’s very clear in the data,” Sporer added.

Glover and Sporer noted that despite this strong support, policymakers in Maine have often lagged behind public opinion on drugs, with Glover noting the Mills administration’s opposition to the drug decriminalization bill in 2021. Mills’ opponent in the upcoming November election, former Gov. Paul LePage (R), took an even harder stance on drugs during his time in office, vetoing an array of opioid treatment bills.

“There’s this hesitancy among lawmakers of all stripes to really embrace a different approach to this policy issue, and there doesn’t necessarily need to be,” Glover said. “Mainers by and large, with some notable exceptions, would support a broad suite of reforms that move away from the criminalizing approach.”

Glover also noted that other places, such as Oregon, have decriminalized small amounts of drugs through referendum rather than via the legislature, a strategy that could potentially find support in Maine, given the results of the survey.

Survey finds support for some harm reduction policies, hesitancy about others

Further questions asked about Mainers’ opinions on harm reduction strategies. The poll found that a strong majority of people in the state (76 percent) support combating the opioid epidemic through broad distribution of overdose reversals such as narcan. A plurality (49 percent) also back funding syringe exchange in every county in Maine, with a little over 30 percent opposing such a policy.

However, just under half of survey respondents said they would oppose safer drug consumption sites in every major metropolitan area in Maine. Such sites, which have been shown to save lives, are designated areas where people can use pre-approved drugs under medical supervision. A little under a third of people said they would support safer consumption sites in cities in Maine and nearly 20 percent were neutral on the question.

Still, Glover said support for a treatment-based approach to drug use has grown steadily over the years, raising the possibility that safe consumption sites could increase in popularity as the public learns more about them.

“I think that is the next horizon,” he said of such sites.

“Thirty two percent of our respondents supporting safer consumption sites is actually pretty striking,” Glover added. “If we were to ask this question 10 years ago, it probably would have been a lot less. So I think what we see is that as exposure to the crisis increases, as education and understanding increases, we’ll continue to see these shifts in public attitudes.”

Additional questions found a majority of Mainers (59 percent) back strengthening the social safety net to address root causes of substance use disorder; support requiring the collection of information on race, ethnicity and socio-economic status for interactions between law enforcement and the public (53 percent); and want to expand non-discrimination policies to include people with substance use disorder (57 percent).

Survey includes interview portion

Along with the polling, the survey by Glover and Sporer also contained “in-depth semi-structured interviews with 30 policymakers, treatment providers, and impacted community members.”

From the interviews, Sporer said researchers discovered that the primary reasons for the shift in public support toward treatment are education about substance use, personal exposure to the issue, and an acknowledgement that there are multiple pathways to recovery.

In the survey, one respondent—identified as Gina, a 61-year-old Republican consultant—told researchers that she used to believe in a tough-on-crime response to drugs but eventually changed her mind after hearing from a medical expert who talked about how substance use disorder is a health issue.

“He helped turn my mind from criminal justice, it’s a crime, we have to punish them, they’re bad people to, no, this is a disease where we have to help these people,” Gina said in the survey.

Another respondent, identified as Patrick—a 63-year-old medical doctor and a Democrat—said witnessing the toll of the opioid epidemic has spurred him to support all forms of harm reduction, including safe consumption sites.

“The kids that my kids grew up with in a very small school system, each of them has several classmates who are dead, as a result of this,” he said in the survey. “Either overdose, suicide, homicide, drug related car accidents, things like that. That’s emotionally very impactful.”

This story was first published by Maine Beacon.

Arkansas Marijuana Legalization Initiative Could Generate Nearly $1 Billion In Sales Every Year, Analysis Finds

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The IRS announced on September 27, 2022 that victims in parts of Alaska now have until February 15, 2023 to file various individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.

This comes after the IRS announced on September 20, 2022 that victims of Hurricane Fiona in all 78 Puerto Rican municipalities now have until February 15, 2023 to file various individual and business tax returns and make tax payments.

IRS Tax Relief Details

The IRS is offering this relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as qualifying for individual assistance. Currently, relief is available to affected taxpayers who live or have a business anywhere in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; and individuals and households that reside or have a business in the Regional Education Attendance Areas of Bering Strait, Kashunamiut, Lower Kuskokwim and Lower Yukon, in Alaska.   Other areas in Alaska added later will also qualify for this relief.  The current list of eligible localities is always available on the disaster relief page on IRS.gov.  The declaration permits the IRS to postpone certain deadlines for taxpayers who reside or have a business in the disaster area.

The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on September 17, 2022. As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until February 15, 2023 to file returns and pay any taxes that were originally due during this period. This includes 2021 individual income tax returns due on October 17, 2022 and any businesses with tax returns that were originally due during this period.

The February 15, 2023, deadline also applies to quarterly estimated income tax payments due on January 17, 2023, and the quarterly payroll and excise tax returns normally due on October 31, 2022 and January 31, 2023. Businesses with an original or extended due date also have the additional time including, among others, calendar-year corporations whose 2021 extensions run out on October 17, 2022. Similarly, tax-exempt organizations also have the additional time, including for 2021 calendar-year returns with extensions due to run out on November 15, 2022.

In addition, for Puerto Rico victims, penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due after September 17, 2022 and before October 3, 2022, will be abated as long as the deposits are made by October 3, 2022.  For qualified Alaska victims, penalties on payroll and excise tax deposits due after September 15, 2022 and before September 30, 2022, will be abated as long as the deposits are made by September 30, 2022.

Tax Planning Tip

Individuals and businesses in a federally declared disaster area who suffered uninsured or unreimbursed disaster-related losses can choose to claim them on either the return for the year the loss occurred (in this instance, the 2022 return normally filed next year), or the return for the prior year (2021).

Be sure to write the FEMA declaration number on any return claiming a loss.

For Puerto Rico: “DR-3583-EM”

For Alaska: “DR-4672-AK”

Importance To Preserve Records

Keep in mind that the IRS has up to three years to select a tax return for audit. The FTB has up to four years to select a tax return for audit. In some cases this period is extended to six years. When a taxpayer is selected for audit, the taxpayer has the burden of proof to show that expenses claimed are properly deductible. Having the evidence handy and organized makes meeting this burden of proof much easier.

Essential Records to Have for a Tax Audit

If you are getting ready for a tax audit, one of the most important things to do is gather and organize your tax records and receipts. There’s a good chance that you have a large amount of documents and receipts in your possession. No matter how organized you are, it can be a daunting task to collect the right pieces and make sure that you have them organized and handy for the audit conference.

We have seen many tax audits that hinge on whether or not the taxpayer can provide proper documentation for their previous tax filings. A tax lawyer in Orange County or elsewhere can make sure that the documentation is complete and proper.  By submitting this to your tax attorney in advance of the audit, your tax attorney can review your documentation and determine if there are any gaps that need to be addressed before starting the dialogue with the IRS agent.

So what are the most essential tax records to have ahead of your audit? Here are a few must-have items:

• Any W-2 forms from the previous year. This can include documents from full-time and part-time work, large casino and lottery winnings and more.
• Form 1098 records from your bank or lender on mortgage interest paid from the previous year.
• Records of any miscellaneous money you earned and reported to the IRS including work done as an independent contractor or freelancer, interest from savings accounts and stock dividends.
• Written letters from charities confirming your monetary donations from the previous year.
• Receipts for business expenses you claimed.
• Mileage Logs for business use of vehicle.
• Entertainment and Travel Logs for business

Tips On Reconstructing Records

Reconstructing records after a disaster is important for several reasons including insurance reimbursement and taxes. Most importantly, records can help people prove their disaster-related losses. More accurately estimated losses can help people get more recovery assistance like loans or grants.

Whether it’s personal or business property that has been lost or destroyed, here are some steps that can help people reconstruct important records.

Tax records

Get free tax return transcripts immediately using the Get Transcript on IRS.gov or through the IRS2Go app.  Tax return transcripts show line-by-line the entries made on your Federal income tax returns.  The most three recent tax years are available.

Financial statements

People can gather past statements from their credit card company or bank. These records may be available online. People can also contact their bank to get paper copies of these statements.

Property records

• To get documents related to property, homeowners can contact the title company, escrow company or bank that handled the purchase of their home or other property.
• Taxpayers who made home improvements can get in touch with the contractors who did the work and ask for statements to verify the work and cost. They can also get written descriptions from friends and relatives who saw the house before and after any improvements.
• For inherited property, taxpayers can check court records for probate values. If a trust or estate existed, taxpayers can contact the attorney who handled the trust.
• When no other records are available, people should check the county assessor’s office for old records that might address the value of the property.
• Car owners can research the current fair-market value for most vehicles. Resources are available online and at most libraries. These include Kelley’s Blue Book, the National Automobile Dealers Association and Edmunds.

Develop And Implement Your Backup Plan

Do not wait for the next disaster to come for then it may be too late to retrieve your important records for a tax audit or for that matter any legal or business matter. And if you do get selected for audit and do not have all the records to support what was claimed on your tax returns, you should contact an experienced tax attorney who can argue the application of your facts and circumstances to pursue the least possible changes in an audit.

The tax attorneys at the Law Offices Of Jeffrey B. Kahn, P.C. located in Orange County (Irvine), Los Angeles and elsewhere in California are highly skilled in handling tax matters and can effectively represent at all levels with the IRS and State Tax Agencies including criminal tax investigations and attempted prosecutions, undisclosed foreign bank accounts and other foreign assets, and unreported foreign income.  Also if you are involved in cannabis, check out what a cannabis tax attorney can do for you.  And if you are involved in crypto currency, check out what a bitcoin tax attorney can do for you.

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