The IRS has been training its agents for at least eight years in the finer details of auditing marijuana companies, using PowerPoint presentations that outline everything from legal precedents to questions that should be asked during interviews with business owners.
Marijuana industry tax experts have known for years the IRS was circulating among its agents a document akin to an Audit Technique Guide – essentially, a manuscript for how agents should deal with Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code and the state-legal cannabis businesses that it covers.
The Internal Revenue Service has been scrutinizing the books and records of marijuana companies for more than a decade, ordering business owners to hand over tens of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.
The IRS has been fixated on the state-legal marijuana industry for more than a decade, largely because it’s been extremely lucrative for the federal agency to audit cannabis companies.
