Fellow attorneys: One of my small towns asked me if they could place a special municipal tax on the marijuana sales shops springing up in their town.  My first reaction was no, but when the Governor proposed this week that the State omit the sales tax on groceries, and (I think) went on to state that the municipalities could create their own taxes on groceries should they choose to do so, .... it made me decide to see what my peers have to say about a special municipal tax on sales from marijuana businesses.After all, my towns have hotel/ motel taxes.Thoughts? Thanking you in advance. Kay Wall

So I may be wrong on this, but my understanding was always that the issue with State sales tax exemptions was that the OTC would only collect our sales tax if they were collecting State sales tax. So if the State isn't collecting theirs, then ours may be due and owing but we have no enforcement mechanism in place. As far as a MM special tax, I'm not sure if that would be allowable. Take a look at both Art. X, Sec. 5(B) of the Constitution and 68 O.S. 2701(A)(1). Both require that any tax be uniform as to the same class of subjects. I've never had to really look at the issue of whether we could have a different sales tax for a particular type of product that is sold that differs from all other retail sales. Does MM's unique status under Oklahoma law make it something different - a class of one so to speak? I know the State imposes an extra tax on top of sales tax. Should that mean that cities and towns could do so as well? Not sure - an intriguing question, the answer to which would probably be very welcome by municipalities in areas that aren't fond of the new industry and may want to raise taxes on the product. Heck, where I'm City Attorney I bet I'd have a few Councilmembers who might want to raise the tax on weed if it might mean that a few dispensaries would relocate a mile in any direction into OKC. It's already a rough go each time we have to go through the special use permit process. On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 10:57 AM Kay Robbins Wall <lkrw@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > Fellow attorneys: > > One of my small towns asked me if they could place a special municipal tax > on the marijuana sales shops springing up in their town. My first reaction > was no, but when the Governor proposed this week that the State omit the > sales tax on groceries, and (I think) went on to state that the > municipalities could create their own taxes on groceries should they choose > to do so, .... it made me decide to see what my peers have to say about a > special municipal tax on sales from marijuana businesses. > After all, my towns have hotel/ motel taxes. > Thoughts? > > Thanking you in advance. > > Kay Wall > -- > Oama mailing list -- oama@lists.imla.org > To unsubscribe send an email to oama-leave@lists.imla.org >