DENVER – Marijuana farmers and agricultural tax breaks are the next wrinkle facing the states having legal weed as lawmakers debate how to tax the product while it’s growing.
Legislatures in both Colorado and Washington are taking a look at pot farmers this session.
The states have already decided how to tax finished marijuana. But they are still mulling taxes as pot is produced, such as how the land on which marijuana is grown should be assessed for property taxes.
Some lawmakers in both states say marijuana growers shouldn’t be eligible for any taxation perks afforded to farmers growing conventional crops. Others say marijuana, while it’s growing, should be treated like the hops and barley going on to become highly taxed alcohol.
Colorado lawmakers delayed a vote last week on whether marijuana greenhouses should be considered agricultural or commercial property. The bill, meant to codify the already-common practice of assessing conventional nurseries and greenhouses, ran into confusion when its sponsor added a last-minute amendment to ban pot growers from getting the advantage.
Republican Sen. Kevin Grantham said he wanted pot growers to “not see any benefit from the ag designation.”
He opposed marijuana legalization in 2012 but said his latest effort to block marijuana tax breaks isn’t a knock on the growers. Instead, he said, he simply wanted to keep the focus of his bill on traditional crops and avoid a marijuana debate.
“It’s not the fight we’re fighting right now,” Grantham said before his bill was first heard. Later the same day, while explaining his bill to colleagues, he joked his effort backfired, and the pot language was “quickly growing to be the fun part of this bill now, apparently.”
Washington lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering a bill to prohibit marijuana growers from qualifying for agriculture tax breaks for 10 years – giving the state time to collect information and make a decision.
The states flouting federal drug law and establishing commercial pot industries have settled how to tax marijuana once it’s dried and ready to smoke. But how to tax growing marijuana and the land it’s grown on is still under debate.
