Marijuana business owners hoping to benefit from the Biden administration’s move to reschedule the drug may be in for disappointment, according to experts.
The administration announced plans Thursday to move forward with a rule that would reschedule marijuana to Schedule III from Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Under U.S. tax code, no business that deals with a Schedule I or Schedule II substance is permitted to make any deductions or add any credit to their annual federal taxes. That stands to change when marijuana becomes a Schedule III drug.
Those in the marijuana space acknowledge that being able to deduct expenses from taxes will be helpful, with Washington, D.C., cannabis dispensary Green Theory calling the decision a “step in the right direction.”
But experts like Robert Mikos, the LaRoche Family Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University, don’t expect a boon for marijuana entrepreneurs.
“It will have some impact. I think the reason that the impact won’t be as great as many people might otherwise anticipate — it’s really twofold,” said Mikos.
“One is that this drug is still going to be regulated under the Controlled Substances Act. And those regulations are going to be really hard for the companies now in the industry to satisfy,” he added.
[Read more at The Hill]Copyright
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