Colorado puts 25% excise tax on pot.

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

Another thing that I don't quite get about the whole pot thing.

Just about every major industry requires that employs pass some type of drug test as a requirement for employment.

Will the State Governments now have to pass laws mandating that Companies ignore that part of the drug testing? It's not like booze that gets out of your system after a couple of days.

Just sayin..........

They will have to change the hiring practices.

They tested for pot to see if you are breaking the law, not whether or not you were stoned RIGHT THEN.

Once pot is legal, companies have no grounds to fire you, UNLESS you are showing up for work stoned. Just like if you showed up for work drunk.

[nwarounder]

Originally Posted by CJ7

please forgive the rightwing simpletons .. any mention of TAX short circuits their tiny little brain ..


per your scenario, you save $35, get exactly what you want for your money, and lose any risk of breaking the law and getting busted ..

logic that deep is waaaaaaaaaaaay too complicated for inbred morons ... tax harshes their mellow.

Wow, I'm agreeing with CJ, who'd ever thought.
I don't think you can truly understand what is going on in CO, unless you have been there recently. The whole notion their government did this and is tricking them, is completely false, no molasses and sulphur. The PEOPLE overwhelmingly (65%-35%)voted for this 25% tax. Get it, the PEOPLE voted for it and passed it, it was not a tax passed by their politicians against their will.

And why wouldn't they vote for it? The heads are going to take care of themselves, the tax will mainly be paid by the tourist's dollars.

[CJ7]

when I was there years ago there two different types of people ... the heads you mention, and the hardcore party line republicans ... who obviously had enough government shutdown and voted to NOT become the 51st state.


heads won though

snick

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by CJ7

please forgive the rightwing simpletons .. any mention of TAX short circuits their tiny little brain ..

per your scenario, you save $35, get exactly what you want for your money, and lose any risk of breaking the law and getting busted ..

logic that deep is waaaaaaaaaaaay too complicated for inbred morons ... tax harshes their mellow.

I think the point is not the existence of the tax, but the level of the tax.

Why not tax pot at the regular state sales tax rate - 7% or 8% or whatever it is?

An excise tax of 25% is practically begging bootleggers to come and start a black market.

Imagine a pack of pot cigarettes containing about an ounce (maybe be a bit less) of pot (medium quality) that should sell for about $100. That's not out of line with this chart, especially if legalization reduces the price:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

With the tax, it sells for $125. That is $25 in taxes for something that fits easily in your hand. A trunk full of "joint" packs will be worth tens of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Booze gets bootlegged for a lot less than that.

And you are practically daring people to grow their own at home, in which case, they will pay ZERO taxes.

That defeats the whole purpose of legalizing it and taxing it to raise revenue.

[Texas Contrarian]

This famous quote from way back in the 17th century comes to mind:

"The art of taxation involves plucking the goose in such a fashion that you may harvest the maximum possible quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."
-- Jean Baptiste Colbert

(Colbert was a French Minister of Finance during the reign of Louis XIV.)

A simple lesson, but one that's been forgotten by far too many -- such as Monsieur Hollande, the sitting president of France!

[nwarounder]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

I think the point is not the existence of the tax, but the level of the tax.

Why not tax pot at the regular state sales tax rate - 7% or 8% or whatever it is?

An excise tax of 25% is practically begging bootleggers to come and start a black market.

Imagine a pack of pot cigarettes containing about an ounce (maybe be a bit less) of pot (medium quality) that should sell for about $100. That's not out of line with this chart, especially if legalization reduces the price:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

With the tax, it sells for $125. That is $25 in taxes for something that fits easily in your hand. A trunk full of "joint" packs will be worth tens of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Booze gets bootlegged for a lot less than that.

And you are practically daring people to grow their own at home, in which case, they will pay ZERO taxes.

That defeats the whole purpose of legalizing it and taxing it to raise revenue.

I'm guessing you have never been to Amsterdam on a weekend? The city is packed with Brits, Germans, French, Americans, and almost every other nationality. And they are their for one reason. The government is going to be too busy counting their cash to worry about the little guy.

When the big guys start rolling it out in mass quantity, the price will plummet and so will the black market. In all my life, I've never seen a bottle of black market whiskey, the little guy or mexican simply won't be able to compete in a legal market.

Will a neighbor sell a little surplus to his buddy, sure, but there will not be a black market to speak of and the cops will not care. It's a completely different mentality than most can imagine. But I love your entrepreneurial spirit!

[CuteOldGuy]

Uh, ExGYer, there is already a black market for weed. I guess you don't read the papers.

[JCM800]

Originally Posted by nwarounder

In all my life, I've never seen a bottle of black market whiskey

white whiskey aka moonshine is black market.

[nwarounder]

Originally Posted by JCM800

white whiskey aka moonshine is black market.

Yep, even in CO still, but the overwhelmingly majority walk into the liquor store and get what they want. It will be no different, the big producers will have the price so cheap in the free market, it won't be worth it to try and compete in an illegal market.

[timpage]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

I think the point is not the existence of the tax, but the level of the tax.

Why not tax pot at the regular state sales tax rate - 7% or 8% or whatever it is?

An excise tax of 25% is practically begging bootleggers to come and start a black market.

Imagine a pack of pot cigarettes containing about an ounce (maybe be a bit less) of pot (medium quality) that should sell for about $100. That's not out of line with this chart, especially if legalization reduces the price:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

With the tax, it sells for $125. That is $25 in taxes for something that fits easily in your hand. A trunk full of "joint" packs will be worth tens of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Booze gets bootlegged for a lot less than that.

And you are practically daring people to grow their own at home, in which case, they will pay ZERO taxes.

That defeats the whole purpose of legalizing it and taxing it to raise revenue.

No, it doesn't, because most people aren't going to go to the trouble of growing it at home or to go looking for black market weed when they can walk into a store and just lay out some cash for the product. Even when they have to pay a 25% tax on the purchase. Shit, last year at this time, the downside to buying and possessing weed was risking arrest and going to prison and people still bought it like crazy. You think a high tax rate is going to faze anybody that wants legal weed? No way.

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Uh, ExGYer, there is already a black market for weed. I guess you don't read the papers.

Don't be an idiot.

I know there is. But that is because it is illegal.

I'm talking about a new black market once it is legal but taxed through the roof. Those people won't be drug dealers. They will be tax cheats.

[Guest032516]

Originally Posted by timpage

No, it doesn't, because most people aren't going to go to the trouble of growing it at home or to go looking for black market weed when they can walk into a store and just lay out some cash for the product. Even when they have to pay a 25% tax on the purchase. Shit, last year at this time, the downside to buying and possessing weed was risking arrest and going to prison and people still bought it like crazy. You think a high tax rate is going to faze anybody that wants legal weed? No way.

That isn't the way that it works.

The people buying black market cigarettes don't know they are buying black market cigarettes. They are sold in stores like regular cigarettes. In NY and NJ when it happened, the deal was between the store owner and the smugglers that used to drive the cigarettes up from the Carolinas/Virginia. The stuff would be in regular cigarette packs with fake tax stamps, but the excise taxes were never paid.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2...on_sticke.html

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Nearly_t...S._authorities

In other types of smuggling, bootleggers buy cigarettes in low tax areas and resell them in store in high tax areas. The guy buying the Marlboros never knows it. That won't really apply to Colorado, since there is only one tax rate in one stated where it is legal.

Naturally, the higher the tax, the greater the incentive to cheat.

A whole van load of packs/cartons of joints could be worth a lot of money to both the store owner and the bootlegger.

And they are the real thing to customers except that the tax stamp is fake.

If smugglers risk jail for the tax on $10 packs of cigarettes ($100/carton), imagine the incentive on a $50 or $100 pack of joints taxed at 25%.

[CuteOldGuy]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

Don't be an idiot.

I know there is. But that is because it is illegal.

I'm talking about a new black market once it is legal but taxed through the roof. Those people won't be drug dealers. They will be tax cheats.

What do you propose? This is a tax I have no problem with.

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

I think the point is not the existence of the tax, but the level of the tax.

Why not tax pot at the regular state sales tax rate - 7% or 8% or whatever it is?

An excise tax of 25% is practically begging bootleggers to come and start a black market.

Imagine a pack of pot cigarettes containing about an ounce (maybe be a bit less) of pot (medium quality) that should sell for about $100. That's not out of line with this chart, especially if legalization reduces the price:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

With the tax, it sells for $125. That is $25 in taxes for something that fits easily in your hand. A trunk full of "joint" packs will be worth tens of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Booze gets bootlegged for a lot less than that.

And you are practically daring people to grow their own at home, in which case, they will pay ZERO taxes.

That defeats the whole purpose of legalizing it and taxing it to raise revenue.

the quote you used from me was a reply from post #18

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

I think the point is not the existence of the tax, but the level of the tax.

Why not tax pot at the regular state sales tax rate - 7% or 8% or whatever it is?

An excise tax of 25% is practically begging bootleggers to come and start a black market.

Imagine a pack of pot cigarettes containing about an ounce (maybe be a bit less) of pot (medium quality) that should sell for about $100. That's not out of line with this chart, especially if legalization reduces the price:

http://www.priceofweed.com/

With the tax, it sells for $125. That is $25 in taxes for something that fits easily in your hand. A trunk full of "joint" packs will be worth tens of thousands of dollars in excise taxes.

Booze gets bootlegged for a lot less than that.

And you are practically daring people to grow their own at home, in which case, they will pay ZERO taxes.

That defeats the whole purpose of legalizing it and taxing it to raise revenue.

I don't have the figures off the top of my head but what's a pack of Marlboro's going for? $5-6? My guess is 25% of that price is taxes.

Similar situation with the alcohol and other 'sin' tax items.