A discussion of growing pains, regulations, and current product investments By Michael Harlow, CPA, Partner CohnReznick Partner Michael Harlow:  Brian, you were one of the first operational dispensaries in Colorado. What is the single largest difference between the early days and now? Brian Rogers: We started in 2009 with one of the first medical marijuana […]

By Michael Harlow, CPA, Partner 280E is the Internal Revenue Code section that has been the focus of every tax discussion related to the cannabis industry for the past 15 years.  It is the Code section that prohibits cannabis companies from deducting any ordinary and necessary business expenses from gross profit when calculating federal taxable […]

By Michael Harlow, CPA, Partner In today’s Cannabis marketplace, we continue to hear one overarching theme.  The industry buzz on everyone’s lips is about “the future consolidation of the industry. This is driven by several factors: strong customer and revenue growth for retailers, price compression for wholesalers, an expected change in the legal landscape, new […]

By Michael Harlow, CPA, Partner What We Have Learned: Ancillary, non-plant-touching businesses in the industry enjoy a variety of federal and state tax opportunities and incentives often not utilized to maximum benefits. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes,” and people in the cannabis […]

By Selvan Boominathan, JD, LLM What We Learned:  A December 2017 review of the proposed Republican tax cuts suggested how politicians would not touch 280E, but still help the legal cannabis industry. In a prior post, we discussed how federal income tax applies to cannabis businesses and the huge burden imposed by Section 280E.  You […]

By Selvan Boominathan, JD, LLM, of CohnReznick What We Have Learned: The QBI deduction (with lower rates across the board, and capital expenditure incentives) should be a boon to the industry at large. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has become the law of the land, and yet, still no relief for cannabis businesses […]