Oakland first city in US to tax pot
• San Francisco WeeklyMail-in voting closes Tuesday on Measure F, a new ordinance in Oakland
which would impose a special tax on sales of medical marijuana in the
city's dispensaries. The measure would make Oakland the first city in
the United States to have a business tax category for marijuana
merchants.
This is nine kinds of screwed up.
1) If voting closes Tuesday, how is Oakland declared on Monday to be the first city to tax?
2) ATFA, customers are already paying $1.20 per mil. + sales tax. This measure would just create a new category that would increase the millage by 1500%. This is not first tax, just a 1500% increase.
3) On what fracking planet does it make sense to raise one portion of a tax on medicine by 1500%?
4) I read an article yesterday claiming that Oakland has a $38 million shortfall. ATFA, this tax will raise between $300,000 and $1 million. Who thought it was a good idea to increase one portion of a tax on medicine by 1500% to cover between 1 and 2% of a budget shortfall?
5) What on earth could be so important in Oakland that it's beneficial to take 1500% more from sick people to pay for?
6) One bay-area city retiree makes $240,000 per year in retirement benefits. Over 700 make over $100,000. Why not cut all those pensions by $1,400 per year for the same benefit as this tax increase?
7) ATFA at least one dispensary in Oakland has been raided by a foreign government. I don't recall any protection being afforded that dispensary or its patients by the city or county.
8) When that dispensary was raided, I don't recall any Oakland bureaucrat, politician, or peace officer being indicted as co-conspirators.
9) If marijuana is medicine under California law, it should already be subject to the same taxes as all other pharmaceuticals. Since, as we know, it is not medicine it is taxed as retail sales, and now subject to a 1500% increase in that millage. Any bureaucrat or pol who receives and/or spends these "revenues" is guilty under federal law of money laundering, racketeering, and receipt of proceeds from the sale of illicit substances.
"A nation of laws." Pshaw.
Other municipalities and states have put taxes on pot and other illegal drugs in the past. They've required drug dealers to buy a tax stamp and collect taxes and when they get busted they then pile on a tax evasion charge for not collecting and paying the tax.
See this from the Kansas Department of Revenue: http://www.ksrevenue.org/perstaxtypesdrug.htm