New Mexico expected to pay an estimated million in tax refunds to medical cannabis companies
CANNANNEW REPORT

From the New Mexico Political Report New Mexico cannabis businesses are expected to pay cannabis excise and gross receipts taxes by the end of this month. But the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department is also expected to issue about $15 million dollars worth of gross receipts refunds to medical cannabis companies that paid those taxes prior to the enactment of the Cannabis Regulation Act, which legalized recreational-use cannabis. State Taxation and Revenue Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke told NM Political Report that while the estimated refund amount may sound like a lot of money, it is a fraction of the estimated $31.5 million the state is expected to collect from non-medical cannabis sales. Further, she said, the estimated $15 million in gross receipts refunds is an even smaller fraction of what the state sets aside for reserves. In the grand scheme of things, we have something like an $8 billion general fund budget, give or take,” Schardin Clarke said. “So there are other things that happen all the time that are just ups and downs in that revenue base.” The tax refunds are the culmination of a years-long legal dispute between the Taxation and Revenue Department and Sacred Garden, a long-time medical cannabis producer. In 2014, Sacred Garden unsuccessfully requested a refund of three years worth of gross receipts taxes the company paid. By 2018, Sacred Garden filed an appeal with the New Mexico Court of Appeals. A panel of appellate judges ruled in favor of Sacred Garden in 2020 and wrote that a doctor’s recommended use of medical cannabis is essentially the same as a prescription for pharmaceutical drugs. The Taxation and Revenue Department challenged that notion and filed a petition with the New Mexico Supreme Court, arguing that a recommendation by a doctor is not the same as a prescription. New…

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Source : New Mexico expected to pay an estimated million in tax refunds to medical cannabis companies

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