Rancho Cordova to vote on taxing personal medical growers

[Seamaiden]

Nice, targeting what medical users/growers do in their own homes. This is practically legal usary if it should come to pass, just unbelievable that anyone would even entertain such a notion as this!

August 5, 2010

Rancho Cordova readies measure to tax marijuana cultivators
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Voters in Rancho Cordova will decide in November whether to tax residents who grow their own pot.
The city measure, put on the Nov. 2 ballot by the City Council this week, would impose taxes on all local residential cultivation if California voters approve Proposition 19 to legalize recreational use.

But the city's proposed "Personal Cannabis Cultivation Tax" also makes no distinction between medical and recreational cultivation. So the tax would kick in for anyone currently cultivating for personal medical use -- whether Prop 19 passes or not.

If passed by local voters, the taxation measure in the Sacramento County city would make at-home cultivation a much more expensive endeavor.

The Rancho Cordova measure would impose a $600 annual tax per square foot of indoor cultivation of 25 square feet of marijuana or less and a $900 per square foot tax if the indoor growing area is more than 25 square feet.

The city tax would cost a local indoor grower $6,000 a year on 10 square feet of pot plants and $15,000 for 25 square feet. Outdoor growers, who would be billed at a lower rate, would pay a $1,200 residential tax for 25 square feet of marijuana plants.

If Proposition 19 passes, it would allow California adults over 21 to cultivate in a 25-square foot residential space. Medical growers often exceed those limits by cultivating with other pot patients.
Under California law, individuals with physicians' recommendations for marijuana can have six mature or 12 immature plants and eight ounces of dried pot at any time.

The California Supreme Court has ruled that medical users can exceed those limits if their cultivation is consistent with their medical needs.


Posted by Peter Hecht

 

[billybadazz]

good luck with trying to collect that kinda $$ from people. Just another attempt to put hard working people in prison for cultivating a plant. I say that because NO ONE will pay that ridiculous price and tax evasion will get you more time than raping kids and murdering people. I don't really think the gov'ts know how much they are pissing people off. You can only pour so much gas on a fire before....pretty soon you got an out of control inferno.

 

[Seamaiden]

I cannot fathom a few things about this.

First, how on earth are they going to identify all the indoor medical growers? Not everyone has a state ID, and if they did, aren't they protected under HIPPA (or is it HIIPA, or is it HIPAA?)? High electrical use alone does not a medical marijuana patient make.

Second, like the Oakland building department, how are they going to assess square footage to tax without going into peoples' homes themselves? This is just like the building department saying to my sister, "Hello, we want to do a walk-through of your home so we can make a shopping list of violations. This is to make you safer (NOT!) and us richer."

Third, this is such an egregious tax rate in itself as to violate some law or hold rather questionable constitutionality. On what legal basis does the city believe it's alright to tax square footage at such outrageous rates?

Fourth, this is another property tax, yet it's a special use type of tax as well. Normally, special use taxes infer that the tax is being paid because the activity might, say, degrade some aspect of the given community. A factory is loud and possibly polluting. A quarry strips the land of its natural beauty. A strip mall creates traffic issues. And so on. What does the home medical grower take away from the community? How does the home medical grower degrade the community, as a whole, when they're growing inside their own fucking home??

Because, as some of you might note, if one RENTED, one would be free from the possibility of said proposed tax. Only owners pay the taxes. So, how would that bit of it work, exactly?

Twats.

 

[kushpheen]

This is disgusting, but not surprising. I'm sure supporters of this bill will be commercial cultivators who want to end personal cultivation at home. Sure weed will be 'legal' but it will be illegal to grow it yourself without a 45k license, smoke it in public, or possess of any amount without a receipt or proof of paid taxes. This is a step forward?

 

[Seamaiden]

Hey residents, it passed!

I have no idea how they're going to enforce this except to target anyone who's got that nifty little state ID card that all government bodies want you to get. I've been refusing the get that nifty little card, it's not so convenient, doesn't save you a thing in terms of trouble with the law as far as I'm concerned, and now... this. The city of Rancho Cordova voted in favor of taxing medical marijuana grows, all of them, at the rate of $600/square foot. Nice, eh?

Posted November 3rd, 2010 by canorml_admin

November 3, 11 AM PDT - While Californians rejected Prop 19 to allow adult use of marijuana, they proved eager to approve measures to tax and regulate medical marijuana. At last report, Prop 19 was at 46%, the highest vote ever recorded in a legalization initiative; the previous record was a 2006 Nevada initiative which scored 44%.

Ballot measures to tax medical marijuana passed overwhelmingly in several cities, while voters in Santa Barbara and Morro Bay rejected initiatives to prohibit dispensaries (Santa Barbara voted 39.4% to 60.64% to reject Measure T; Morro Bay voted 45.5% to 54.6% against Measure B-10).

Sacramento Measure C, which would tax medical marijuana businesses up to 4%, passed 71.2% to 28.8%.

San Jose approved a 10% marijuana tax, Measure U, by 77.7% - 22.3%

Oakland approved Measure V, to increase the marijuana tax from 1.8% to 5%, by 69.8%-30.2%.

Berkeley approved a 2.5% medical marijuana tax, Measure S, by 82.4% to 17.6%, and a measure to allow licensed gardens, Measure T, 64.4% - 35.6%.

Richmond approved a 5% medical marijuana tax, 77.4 - 22.6%.

Albany adopted a marijuana business license tax, Measure Q, 83% to 17%.

Stockton approved a 2.5% MMJ business tax, Measure I, 66%-34%.

La Puente approved a medical marijuana tax Prop M and a non-medical tax Measure N that would have taken effect if Prop 19 passed.

Long Beach voters approved a recreational marijuana tax Measure B by 72%, but the measure won't take effect because Prop 19 failed.

Rancho Cordova passed a medical marijuana tax measure that Cal NORML strongly opposed as excessive: Measure O (56%-44%) would require all marijuana grows to pay $600 per square foot for up to 25 square feet of growing space. The city also approved a non-medical marijuana tax Measure H, which would have taken effect only if Prop 19 passed (67.4 - 32.5%)

Gotta add another story/link:

<snipped for brevity>

Rancho Cordova's Measure O could charge a medical user $15,000 for growing pot in a 5-by-5-foot space at home. Though he supports dispensary taxes, Gieringer said the city cultivation levy violates the 1996 Proposition 215 medical marijuana law.


"Nobody is going to pay that tax," he said.


Read more: ​

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

shit like this is gonna keep passing. to much unacounted for money. stuff like this just really sucks, but it seems everyone wants a piece of the pie.

 

[amstercal]

Only owners pay the tax? Who wrote that crap? Defies any logic. And why are they still quoting the SB 420 limits? I'm seeing city uniforms with the phrase, mj tax assessor, on them. They would need that much in taxes to actually send people out to survey gardens. Then if they were there, how could they ignore the serious electrical hazards most growers run with? Too weird.

Hey, GoD, I've been meaning to ask you... do you know any OC dispensaries that are operating with the city's knowledge without harassment? Not asking for names, just wondering what cities and if they actually issued a permit or anything.

 

[Blucross]

I would start to think Vertical growing.