Considering the mountain of regulations and heavy compliance costs heaped upon the cannabis industry, it’s little wonder the illegal market continues to thrive in Nevada.
Even before considering the regulatory structures that limit where and how the industry operates, the tax burden alone makes it a challenge for legitimate operations to compete with the illicit market on price. With a 15 percent wholesale tax paid at the cultivation level, a 10 percent excise tax on retail sales and regular sales taxes to boot, the actual cost to the consumer gets out of hand pretty quickly.
A bill in the Assembly, however, aims to reshuffle this tax structure as a way to simplify and improve what has become a messy bureaucratic weight on the industry’s shoulders…