Pennsylvania lawmakers are advancing legislation to correct an omission in a law that unintentionally excluded dispensaries from state-level tax relief for the medical marijuana industry.
About three months after the legislature approved a budget bill that the governor signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the House Finance Committee approved two versions of the measure that are now pending final floor action.
As enacted, the marijuana provision currently allows other licensee types such as growers and processors to take state tax deductions equivalent to what they’re denied under the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E. But while legislators intended to include dispensaries as well, there was a drafting error that was overlooked as the bill moved through the process.
The Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB), which is responsible for formatting legislation to ensure it complies with statute, evidently returned a copy of the legislation with the dispensary omission. There is a LRB process for correcting legitimate requested drafting mistakes. But because this error wasn’t caught before the bill was signed into law by Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), it required lawmakers to pass separate legislation in order to
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