OLYMPIA, Wash. (CBS SEATTLE/AP) — Legal marijuana could boost Washington state’s tax revenue by $25 million by next July, with an estimated $200 million increase by mid-2017, according to state economists.
The first available data on taxes and fees the state can expect from legalized recreational marijuana were released on Thursday, and the state’s budget outlooks has improved, economist Steve Lerch tells the Spokesman-Review. However, more than half of the revenue brought in by legal marijuana is required to go to specific programs, with much of it being eaten up by increasing salaries and existing government programs.
But the regulating agency, the state Liquor Control Board, said nearly $14 million worth of marijuana was sold between July 8 – when legal weed stores first opened – and last Monday. Such numbers are expected to increase as the number of marijuana vendors increases.
Economic forecasters are predicting that the state’s legal recreational marijuana market is expected to bring in about $636 million to state coffers through the middle of 2019.
The forecast by the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council showed that just over $25 million from a variety of legal marijuana-related taxes — including excise, sales, and business taxes — is expected to be collected through the middle of next year. An additional $207 million is expected for the next two-year budget that ends mid-2017. And $404 million is expected for 2017-19 budget biennium.
The passage of Initiative 502 in 2012 allowed the sale of the marijuana to adults for recreational use at licensed stores, which opened this summer.
Forecasters warned that with the market still developing, the numbers will continue to change in future forecasts.
But David Schumacher, director of the Office of Financial Management, said marijuana revenue isn’t going to bail the state out of its vast budget problems.
“In the face of a budget problem approaching $2 billion or $3 billion, it’s not very much money.”
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