Taxes and Tokes: Taxing America's Top Cash Crop

Legalizing marijuana for recreational use included as part of supporters’ story the amount of tax money a state could realize from the sale of cannabis and cannabis-related products. And while marijuana taxes have mostly lived up to those predictions, there’s a lot more money on the table.

According to Community Tax, a full-service tax company offering services to U.S. taxpayers, marijuana is the top cash crop in the U.S., hauling in nearly $3.1 billion annually. Worldwide, the cash value of marijuana tops $300 billion, making it the largest cash crop in the world. Only rice exceeds $200 billion in revenues and only wheat and maize (corn) exceed $100 billion.

Community Tax has prepared a handsome graphic of the tax benefits to Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, the four states where recreational sales and use of marijuana is legal. Only Colorado and Washington have enough history to demonstrate year-over-year growth, but it is clear that tax revenues are soaring.

In the fiscal year ended in June 2015, Colorado collected $77.9 million in retail taxes from marijuana sales. In the following eight months through February of 2016 the state has collected $88.3 million. In Washington, tax collections totaled $64.9 million in fiscal 2015 and have soared to $126.7 million in the first 8 months of the 2016 fiscal year.

Here’s the Community Tax graphic: