Colorado Brings in Over $1 Million in Tax Revenue in First Month

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The tax coffers in Colorado are substantially more full this year. They only need to look towards recreational marijuana to find the source of this sudden influx of revenue. NBC News surveyed half of the 35 licensed recreational marijuana retailers in Colorado, who shared the first 27 days of tax data recorded within the first […]

The tax coffers in Colorado are substantially more full this year. They only need to look towards recreational marijuana to find the source of this sudden influx of revenue.

NBC News surveyed half of the 35 licensed recreational marijuana retailers in Colorado, who shared the first 27 days of tax data recorded within the first month of legal cannabis sales. The total reached $1.24 million in tax revenue.

Here’s a kicker: some of these shops were only able to sell pot for four days due to complications with state and local licenses.

At 3D Cannabis, they have to close their doors regularly because they can’t keep up with the demand for their product. She believes she could improve upon her $20,000 day sales figures.

We could double that if we had enough inventory, but currently there’s an inventory shortage so we’re capping our sales.
– Toni Fox, Owner of 3D Cannabis

Fox says when she’s open, she’s averaging about $20,000 a day in sales.

Many have begun to extrapolate the data, and some have begun to estimate that tax collections could reach a quarter of a million dollars a day in February. That would mean that the state could take in as much as $100 million in tax revenue in 2014.

When recreational legalization was first discussed, estimates projected tax revenues to reach between $65 and 70 million.

Colorado only collected about $39.9 million in taxes from alcoholic beverages in fiscal 2013, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. Local activists are beginning to sing the praises of this legal system, as the Colorado experiment seems to be working seamlessly.

Elected officials around the country are watching what’s happening in Colorado and they’re recognizing that there’s a better way to handle marijuana… obviously this is just the first month of sales and only a fraction of the businesses that are expected to be open are currently operating.
– Mason Tvert, Marijuana Policy Project Director of Communications

Although almost everyone thought that marijuana would be a boom for the Colorado economy, activists made sure that the tax revenue would put back into high-priority areas, including education.

Looks like the Colorado school system has some new funds for improvement.

Source: NBC News