California Pot Dispensaries Not Paying Their Fair Share in Taxes

Its time to march, my friends. There is a whole class of people who are filthy rich and are flaunting their wealth in the faces of everyone else, and they are documented as cheating the IRS and are complaining when asked to pay their fair share to the government. Who are these rich scofflaws? Pot dispensary owners, that’s who.

From Fox here:

A San Francisco Bay area medical marijuana dispensary that promotes itself as the world’s largest has been hit with a $2.4 million tax bill following an audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

The back taxes, penalties and interest levied against Harborside Health Center came after the IRS examined its returns for 2007 and 2008 and determined a 1982 tax code prohibiting cost deductions for businesses that traffic in illegal drugs applies to the dispensary.

Harborside is a spa-like fixture on Oakland’s waterfront with 94,114 registered customers and 84 full-time employees that offers an average of 30 varieties of medical marijuana every day and has $22 million in annual sales.

DeAngelo, the subject of an upcoming Discovery Channel reality show, said the write-offs disallowed by the IRS included standard operating costs such as rent, payroll, employee health insurance and licensing fees.

DeAngelo has until Dec. 22 to contest the audit in tax court. The IRS has told him it is now reviewing Harborside’s returns for 2009 and 2010.

DeAngelo said he does not have the $2.4 million the IRS wants. Like all legal medical marijuana dispensaries in California, Harborside operates as a nonprofit corporation while paying state sales taxes and a 5 percent local tax to Oakland — for a total of $3.1 million this year, he said.

“We would be happy to pay taxes like every other business does,” he said. “No business, including Harborside, could survive if it’s taxed on its gross revenue. All we want is to be treated like every other business in America.”

“What the taxing authorities are losing sight of is if you tax these places out of business and make it so they can’t compete.”

Yep, that’s the same bullshit excuse big oil has. We need to force Bit Pot to pay their fair share like anyone else. Lets march on these so-called medical facilities, smash their windows, burn their illegally harvested carbon-based product, and bring democracy back to America!