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Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

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Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#91

Post by moonchrome »

chipgap98 wrote: post #67
moonchrome wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

25% incredibly high ? Some European countries have higher VAT than that :(

Is that a reasonable metric in this case? I'd be more interested in the tax other countries have on marijuana/alcohol

Considering those get taxed on top of VAT and are even higher in my country (it's not a % tax but a fixed number per defined unit but it comes down to ~30% post VAT on tobacco products for eg.) and AFAIK US has no VAT (maybe I'm wrong ?) I wouldn't call 25% tax incredibly high.

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#92

Post by pa5tabear »

fpgaminer wrote: post #66
AaronFriel wrote: post #34

This is good news and bad news. The funding for schools will be a boon to education in the state, and that's certainly not bad. However, I expect will almost certainly lead to decreased education funding from other revenue sources, and ultimately place education footing on less solid ground for years to come. It was brilliant PR move to earmark the tax revenue for education, there's no doubt about that. It's very har…

Sure, but we didn't earmarking marijuana taxes for education so that we could improve education. Any informed voter would know that. We did it so that we could get uninformed/uneducated voters to pass the legislation. Now, I don't mean "uninformed/uneducated voters" in a negative way. Most voters, even intelligent ones, are classed as uninformed/uneducated when it comes to most topics. Because really, who has time du…

I think you're very wrong about educational funding. There's a high correlation between a schools relative wealth and its relative academic success in each state (mainly tied to property taxes). Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, and yes there's lots of room for systematic improvement. But more money could absolutely make a difference at the underperforming schools.

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#93

Post by jqm »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #61
s_dev wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ireland in 2008 we were warned the only two industries that would remain unaffected by the looming recession were the funeral and cigarette manufacturing industry. The two were absolutely stable the entire time almost every other industry brought in less tax revenue/revenue. Sin taxes can be some of the most stable sources of income as in the case of cigarettes and this is more evident during times of downturn whe…

Death is inevitable. Cigarettes are addictive - there's a physiological impetus to continue smoking if you're addicted. Marijuana is significantly less addictive, and it takes very little willpower to stop using it during times of hardship.

It's also pretty trivial for smokers to grow a few marijuana plants if disposable income gets low. There goes that tax revenue. Cigarette tobacco on the other hand requires more processing and growing it for personal consumption generally isn't done.

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#94

Post by TrevorJ »

pa5tabear wrote: post #92
fpgaminer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we didn't earmarking marijuana taxes for education so that we could improve education. Any informed voter would know that. We did it so that we could get uninformed/uneducated voters to pass the legislation. Now, I don't mean "uninformed/uneducated voters" in a negative way. Most voters, even intelligent ones, are classed as uninformed/uneducated when it comes to most topics. Because really, who has time du…

I think you're very wrong about educational funding. There's a high correlation between a schools relative wealth and its relative academic success in each state (mainly tied to property taxes). Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, and yes there's lots of room for systematic improvement. But more money could absolutely make a difference at the underperforming schools.

I'm really curious if this is true, or if there's some correlation =/= causation stuff at play.

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#95

Post by rayiner »

pa5tabear wrote: post #92
fpgaminer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but we didn't earmarking marijuana taxes for education so that we could improve education. Any informed voter would know that. We did it so that we could get uninformed/uneducated voters to pass the legislation. Now, I don't mean "uninformed/uneducated voters" in a negative way. Most voters, even intelligent ones, are classed as uninformed/uneducated when it comes to most topics. Because really, who has time du…

I think you're very wrong about educational funding. There's a high correlation between a schools relative wealth and its relative academic success in each state (mainly tied to property taxes). Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, and yes there's lots of room for systematic improvement. But more money could absolutely make a difference at the underperforming schools.

There is in fact very little correlation between school spending per student and performance: http://www.npri.org/publications/analysis-shows-little-to-no....

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#96

Post by eru »

civilian wrote: post #77
AaronFriel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a small (4-6%) change in revenue can wipe out inflationary increases in funding for education. Even if they're counter-cyclical, the evidence is that replacing education funding with something more volatile is risky, because it's replacing consistent funding with something that is based on market dynamics. In the case of marijunaa, it's largely cultural.

If we're looking to avoid volatile revenue streams, we should also avoid income taxes. But that's not really a starter, is it? http://taxfoundation.org/blog/new-sp-report-shows-income-tax... A better solution would be to have a budget that accounted for potential volatility, and specified where surpluses should go, and where things should be cut from if revenues are down.

Don't governments have the ability to go into debt for exactly that stabilizing function?

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#97

Post by civilian »

eru wrote: post #96
civilian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're looking to avoid volatile revenue streams, we should also avoid income taxes. But that's not really a starter, is it? http://taxfoundation.org/blog/new-sp-report-shows-income-tax... A better solution would be to have a budget that accounted for potential volatility, and specified where surpluses should go, and where things should be cut from if revenues are down.

Don't governments have the ability to go into debt for exactly that stabilizing function?

Yes, but wouldn't it be way better to make them honestly try to balance budgets, rather than knowing they can always over-run and kick the can down the road?

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#98

Post by eru »

angersock wrote: post #15
blazespin wrote: post #3

Yeah, it'd be interesting to also see how much less / more policing is required, drug rehab programs, anti-drug programs, loss economic behavior due to increased drug use, diversion of consumption from other taxable goods to MJ (say a decrease in alchohol tax revenue), etc. Hopefully much less policing is required, but I don't think it was particularly policed all that much to begin with. In fact, policing tax collec…

I think also couching legalization in term of economics might be setting things up for failure and it might make better sense to say it's just philosophically the right thing to do(??) Policies like this are almost always better-off as economic rather than moral proposals. It's hard to get people to agree to what's right , whereas it is distressingly easy to get people to agree to what's profitable .

It's because profitability is a real world concept with factual right and wrong answers---that we might not know at any one time, but can be figured out in principle.

Re: Marijuana tax take nearly double expected in Colorado

#100

Post by YokoZar »

eru wrote: post #96
civilian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're looking to avoid volatile revenue streams, we should also avoid income taxes. But that's not really a starter, is it? http://taxfoundation.org/blog/new-sp-report-shows-income-tax... A better solution would be to have a budget that accounted for potential volatility, and specified where surpluses should go, and where things should be cut from if revenues are down.

Don't governments have the ability to go into debt for exactly that stabilizing function?

State governments generally do not without some creative accounting. Most states have "balanced budget" requirements, although they're allowed to issue bonds - provided said bonds are specifically earmarked for specific programs, and in some cases approved through a separate process like a referendum.
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