Conservative Tax Reformer Grover Norquist Supports the End of Prohibition and 280E

Marijuana Business Daily has reported that ultra conservative tax-reformer Grover Norquist (primary promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and passionate opponent of any tax increase) has given his support to an amendment to exempt cannabis companies from IRS 280E as long as they’re in full compliance with state laws.

Wait, what?

Admittedly, the American Cannabis Report has a brain freeze when it comes to conservative politicians who support cannabis. Maybe it's because our moms still ask whether we're "still involved in that industry", but like Dorothy newly landed in Oz, we've long had trouble separating conservatives like Norquist and Dana Rohrabacher from anti-cannabis conservatives like the current AG.

What's makes our ignorance even more glaring is that MJBizDaily interviewed Norquist months ago and found that he's supported cannabis legalization for a decade(!) - - so this is definitely not hot news, but it is compelling!

Here are a few quotes from the Norquist interview worth pondering:

"The 280E section of the tax code is used to strip all normal business deductions away from somebody who sells marijuana. Instead of having a 35% tax on your profits, it’s a 35% tax on sales, which can be more than your profits, or it can be 70% of your profits. It’s devastating.So we have been supportive from the beginning of getting rid of that particular tax policy. We ought to strip out that discrimination against marijuana production, sale and use, and allow states to have a conversation about what works and what doesn’t and what they want to do."

"What I would urge is that we work through Congress. We’ve got enough states now to be able to say, “You should be able to bank – that should not be a problem. You should be able to take normal business deductions in states where this is treated as a normal product.”If a state says no (to MJ legalization), then a state says no. But when they do say yes, then it should be respected that way. On a principled matter, (Congress) shouldn’t have federal tax law gutting the ability of states to experiment with different efforts, and that’s true on school choice and home schooling and gun laws as well as marijuana."

While we're rethinking our relationship with Norquist and the libertarians, the question remains: How did the Los Angeles Cannabis Expo pick Roger Stone?

Image source: wikipedia