With $10.7 million in marijuana tax revenues expected in Oregon for fiscal year 2016, state officials say they are still determining how to collect them.
The Portland Tribune reports that the recreational marijuana industry generally operates with cash because most banks, citing the disparities between federal and state laws, refuse to offer accounts to the pot companies.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued guidance to banks in 2014 that they could do business with state-sanctioned marijuana businesses, but future presidential administrations could reverse that policy and the burden is still on financial institutions to report suspicious activities such as drug trafficking.
Deanna Mack, the legislative coordinator for the Department of Revenue, said in May that the state may have difficulties in getting the cash from shops.
Some have suggested a system like mailboxes for marijuana retailers to drop off their cash for tax purposes, but officials say that is not likely.
“The really large amounts of cash are going to be collected in taxes,” Towslee said. Cannabis businesses will have to pay the commission’s application and licensing fees, but “both of those are handled online,” Towslee said. “It’s going to have to be done some way other than cash. So all the plans we had to accept large amounts of aromatic cash are off the table.”
All of this is further complicated by what Republican State Senate minority leader Ted Ferrioli told The Oregonian about the gap between the legality of possessing and smoking marijuana in the state, which began July 1, and the sanctioned sales to begin in October.
“It just seemed illogical and unfair to say something is legal, but you can’t buy it,” Ferrioli said. The state was in essence telling consumers, “Just wait for a year or so until your bureaucracy can catch up with your democracy,” he said.