3c) Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Sections 6.32.050 and 6.32.100 of the Mendocino County Code to Provide, for Cannabis Cultivation and Nursery Operations, a Reduction in the Cannabis Business Tax for Tax Years 2023 and 2024 and to Establish a Penalty and Interest Amnesty Program and a Prior Year Tax Payment Plan
(Sponsor: Supervisor Mulheren)
I oppose any modification or amendment of SECTIONS 6.32.050 AND 6.32.100 OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY CODE known as the marijuana business tax.
The modification of the above ordinance brought up as item 3C on the consent agenda should be reconsidered.
According to Supervisor Mo Mulheren at the last BOS meeting, 297 farmers have not paid business taxes dating back to 2018.
Delinquent pot farmers’ business tax now totals 4.2 million dollars.
The Board should consider how the county can collect NOW on the 4.2 million dollars now owed by pot farmers?
How?
County Code—-Chapter 3.62, Cannabis business tax,
Sec. 6.32.160 - Enforcement—- lays out the law for actions of collection of pot farmers and I urge you to follow the existing law.
Section 160 gives wide power to the Tax Collector and Sheriff.
I don’t believe the Tax collector is using the legal tools she has to collect back taxes and she needs to start doing so tomorrow. I believe she is escaping her duty to collect back pot taxes.
She need not wait the three years after non payment to impose a lien on property of pot farmers who are delinquent in their taxes.
The Tax Collector should use a quicker option laid out in Section 160-C and the public and the Board needs to urge to do so today, before the pot farmers forevermore stiff the county for their delinquent debt.
The Tax Collector has the power under Subsection C to issue a warrant of payment if the tax is delinquent within three years after it arises.
Therefore, the Tax Collector can issue this warrant on delinquent taxes now.
Has she provided you with any data that she has ever used Subsection C to collect delinquent pot tax? Have you demanded she provide this data?
Under Section C, the Sheriff may then issue a writ of execution against the debtor.
Has he issued even one writ against any delinquent pot farmer yet? He cannot if the Tax Collector fails to do her duty to collect back taxes.
She needs to start issuing warrants for enforcement on every pot grower who has not paid the taxes.
Instead of reductions and waivers in the proposed ordinance in item 3c, NO forgiveness or waiver of back interest or penalty on unpaid pot tax should be made law—NONE.
The time to pay delinquent pot tax now owed should not be extended, nor the tax itself reduced by half in the future as the ordinance proposes.
Why?
First, no Pot Farmer, his lawyer, or consultant has pledged to pay any taxes owed. There has been complete silence about a good will gesture of paying up before the law goes into effect.
Second, the Pot Lobby used a completely contradictory and illogical argument to get Supervisor Mulheren to introduce the sweet heart ordinance. The public should not be hoodwinked by the Pot Lobby’s specious argument.
While pot farmers have enough money to hire a slew of lawyers and consultants, they don’t have money to pay any taxes owed.
While they claim low pot prices cut their profits, they ignore that those low prices are going to go lower —
Every year, the supply keeps growing everywhere.
So if pot prices continue to decline, the pot farmers can’t ever pay Mendocino County back taxes in the future. But why consider basic economic laws when they seek grants from the state based on whether they were victims of the war on drugs, lived within five miles of a drug bust, or have a parent or child who was busted for being a pot criminal. George Orwell would love it. The grant makes criminals whole for being criminals.
If they cannot pay now, lower prices in the future will make it almost certain they will not pay within the next three years.
In three years, the county will be out more money than today without any means to collect.
In the meantime, the county is harmed. Part of this tax money was supposed to go to repairing roads and mental health.
Instead of bringing in money to the county, the general fund is paying 2.8 million dollars a year to pay for salaries and expenses of the new Department of Pot to regulate delinquent pot farmers.
About 62 percent of the voters who approved this ordinance expected and were promised the general fund would not have to subsidize pot farmers, that they in fact would enrich the county. Now we see the pot farmers refuse to keep their bargain by intentionally refusing to pay taxes.
Instead the pot farmers’ refusals to pay taxes results in this proposed amendment which I urge all Supervisors reject, since doing so bails out a business.
Third, all other businesses in the county pay taxes or go bankrupt. No other business has been bailed out by county General Funds. You certainly should not start by forgiving pot farmers’ business taxes. This is ludicrous precedent.
The county must get paid the back taxes, interest owed, and penalties .
We had pot holes galore and mentally ill people running around who were supposed to be paid by the pot business tax. And we have more now than than then.
Please perform there basic duty of government. Collect the taxes to pay for pot holes and the mentally ill.
I oppose any modification or amendment of SECTIONS 6.32.050 AND 6.32.100 OF THE MENDOCINO COUNTY CODE known as the marijuana business tax.
The modification of the above ordinance brought up as item 3C on the consent agenda should be reconsidered.
According to Supervisor Mo Mulheren at the last BOS meeting, 297 farmers have not paid business taxes dating back to 2018.
Delinquent pot farmers’ business tax now totals 4.2 million dollars.
The Board should consider how the county can collect NOW on the 4.2 million dollars now owed by pot farmers?
How?
County Code—-Chapter 3.62, Cannabis business tax,
Sec. 6.32.160 - Enforcement—- lays out the law for actions of collection of pot farmers and I urge you to follow the existing law.
Section 160 gives wide power to the Tax Collector and Sheriff.
I don’t believe the Tax collector is using the legal tools she has to collect back taxes and she needs to start doing so tomorrow. I believe she is escaping her duty to collect back pot taxes.
She need not wait the three years after non payment to impose a lien on property of pot farmers who are delinquent in their taxes.
The Tax Collector should use a quicker option laid out in Section 160-C and the public and the Board needs to urge to do so today, before the pot farmers forevermore stiff the county for their delinquent debt.
The Tax Collector has the power under Subsection C to issue a warrant of payment if the tax is delinquent within three years after it arises.
Therefore, the Tax Collector can issue this warrant on delinquent taxes now.
Has she provided you with any data that she has ever used Subsection C to collect delinquent pot tax? Have you demanded she provide this data?
Under Section C, the Sheriff may then issue a writ of execution against the debtor.
Has he issued even one writ against any delinquent pot farmer yet? He cannot if the Tax Collector fails to do her duty to collect back taxes.
She needs to start issuing warrants for enforcement on every pot grower who has not paid the taxes.
Instead of reductions and waivers in the proposed ordinance in item 3c, NO forgiveness or waiver of back interest or penalty on unpaid pot tax should be made law—NONE.
The time to pay delinquent pot tax now owed should not be extended, nor the tax itself reduced by half in the future as the ordinance proposes.
Why?
First, no Pot Farmer, his lawyer, or consultant has pledged to pay any taxes owed. There has been complete silence about a good will gesture of paying up before the law goes into effect.
Second, the Pot Lobby used a completely contradictory and illogical argument to get Supervisor Mulheren to introduce the sweet heart ordinance. The public should not be hoodwinked by the Pot Lobby’s specious argument.
While pot farmers have enough money to hire a slew of lawyers and consultants, they don’t have money to pay any taxes owed.
While they claim low pot prices cut their profits, they ignore that those low prices are going to go lower —
Every year, the supply keeps growing everywhere.
So if pot prices continue to decline, the pot farmers can’t ever pay Mendocino County back taxes in the future. But why consider basic economic laws when they seek grants from the state based on whether they were victims of the war on drugs, lived within five miles of a drug bust, or have a parent or child who was busted for being a pot criminal. George Orwell would love it. The grant makes criminals whole for being criminals.
If they cannot pay now, lower prices in the future will make it almost certain they will not pay within the next three years.
In three years, the county will be out more money than today without any means to collect.
In the meantime, the county is harmed. Part of this tax money was supposed to go to repairing roads and mental health.
Instead of bringing in money to the county, the general fund is paying 2.8 million dollars a year to pay for salaries and expenses of the new Department of Pot to regulate delinquent pot farmers.
About 62 percent of the voters who approved this ordinance expected and were promised the general fund would not have to subsidize pot farmers, that they in fact would enrich the county. Now we see the pot farmers refuse to keep their bargain by intentionally refusing to pay taxes.
Instead the pot farmers’ refusals to pay taxes results in this proposed amendment which I urge all Supervisors reject, since doing so bails out a business.
Third, all other businesses in the county pay taxes or go bankrupt. No other business has been bailed out by county General Funds. You certainly should not start by forgiving pot farmers’ business taxes. This is ludicrous precedent.
The county must get paid the back taxes, interest owed, and penalties .
We had pot holes galore and mentally ill people running around who were supposed to be paid by the pot business tax. And we have more now than than then.
Please perform there basic duty of government. Collect the taxes to pay for pot holes and the mentally ill.