The governor of Pennsylvania has signed a bill 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 the underlying budget bill that Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the Pennsylvania legislature passed corrective legislation earlier this month. And on Tuesday, the governor gave it final approval.
As originally enacted, the marijuana provision allowed other licensee types such as growers and processors to take state tax deductions equivalent to what they're denied under the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 Shapiro, it required lawmakers to pass separate legislation in order to give dispensaries the state-level tax relief.
Read more at Marijuana Moment