Md. Comptroller’s Office To Collect Tax On Recreational Marijuana Sales

Some of the money will be distributed to the counties.Md. Comptroller Brooke Lierman (Photo from Md. Comptroller’s Office)Frederick, Md (KM) This coming Saturday, July 1st, Maryland’s marijuana laws change. Anyone 21 or older will be able to purchase no more than one-and-a-half ounces of cannabis from licensed dispensaries for recreational use.During an appearance before the Frederick County Council last week, Comptroller Brooke Lierman said there will be a tax on recreational marijuana. “The role of the Office of the Comptroller is, of course, to collect the sales and use tax,”: she said. “How the legislature set up the tax structure for marijuana is a simple nine percent sales tax. There’s no excise tax; It’s just a nine percent sales tax.”Lireman says the Comptroller’s Office will collect this tax, and be the keeper of these funds which will be used for “paying for the administration. So paying for the Maryland Cannabis Administration work,”: she says. “Then it is going to a number of different funds that have been set up. A piece of it will go back to the counties and then a smaller piece to the municipalities if the dispensary is located in that municipalities.”She told the County Council not to expect a windfall from tax revenue collected on recreational marijuana sales.By Kevin McManus