Washington State marijuana stores along the Oregon border have seen their sales plummet since their southern neighbor’s legalization program went online last October, according to The Oregonian.
For example, cannabis tax revenues in Washington’s Klickitat County, to the northeast of Portland, dropped 47% since October, when marijuana stores started opening in Oregon.
Some observers also blamed the border store sales drop on the higher taxes in Washington, figuring that some consumers along the state line would be willing to drive to Oregon to save a few dollars. For example, Washington has a 37% state tax on recreational marijuana, compared to 25% in Oregon, where cannabis taxes will go down later this year to between 17% and 20%.
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Being from Vancouver, WA. Crossing the border to avoid tax is standard. WA will have to lower its tax rate in order to compete with the cost and quality that Oregon provides.
We predicted this was going to happen in October of 2014. The analysis we did at the time covered a much smaller base of operating rec stores in Washington. The final figures are different but the outcome is the same; Washington’s excessive tax structure hurts businesses and results in lost tax revenue for the state.
http://canna-ventures.com/oregons-measure91-whats-the-tax-impact-on-washington-state/
As a licensed Wa prod/proc we were thrilled to see HB2988 which would have stopped the moratoriums & more importantly, would have reduced the Wa sales tax from 37% to 25%. To our dismay there was insufficient interest to move the bill forward….and yes sales are down considerably because of Oregon’s more favorable tax structure. How much more revenue will Washington waste before they realize that what they saved in a few points of tax revenue will seem insignificant in the long run? Who wants to be gouged?