Existing law authorizes the legislative body of a city and the board of supervisors of a county to license, for revenue and regulation, and fix a license tax upon, every kind of lawful business transacted in the city or county, as specified.
The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act of 2016 (AUMA), an initiative measure approved as Proposition 64 at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, authorizes a person who obtains a state license under AUMA to engage in commercial adult-use cannabis activity pursuant to that license and applicable local ordinances. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities.
MAUCRSA does not supersede or limit
the authority of a local jurisdiction to adopt and enforce local ordinances to regulate commercial cannabis businesses within that local jurisdiction. Existing law also specifies that a county may impose a tax on the privilege of cultivating, manufacturing, producing, processing, preparing, storing, providing, donating, selling, or distributing cannabis or cannabis products by a licensee operating under MAUCRSA.
Existing law imposes a state excise tax on the purchase of adult-use and medicinal cannabis and cannabis products at the rate of 15% of the average market price of any retail sale by a cannabis retailer. Existing law also imposes a state cultivation tax upon all cultivators on all harvested cannabis that enters the commercial market, at specified rates per dry-weight ounce of cannabis flowers and leaves. Existing law requires the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to administer the cannabis excise tax and the cannabis cultivation tax.
This bill, on or before January 1, 2022, would require the California Department of Tax and Fee administration to issue and deliver to the Legislature a report on how the state, cities, and counties could receive any cannabis tax amounts due by payment using stablecoins, as described.