The illicit market continues to thrive, and the main consensus on why that’s the case is that taxes on marijuana are too high, making the price difference between legal and illegal weed pretty steep.
But apparently this wasn’t clear to California’s legislating body when a 2022 bill was signed into law.
That year, the excise tax was removed, certainly a welcomed move at the time. However, written into the bill was a requirement to raise taxes if revenue continued to fall.
Now it’s 2025 and revenue has certainly continued to fall. Because of this, on July 1st the state tax will go from 15% to 19%, which is the highest rise allowed by the state.
There may still be hope before the July 1st deadline. A bill was introduced by Assemblymember Matt Haney that would block the mandatory hike and is now making its way through congress. It passed a committee vote unanimously on April 24.
Hopefully this bill makes it in time, because a 4% increase in taxes at a very shaky time for many businesses would be too much for a good amount of them.
Read the original story at SFGate.
