New Mexico has collected, or is due to collect, nearly $10 million dollars from cannabis taxes, according to the state’s Regulation and Licensing and Taxation and Revenue departments.
According to the latest announcement from the Regulation and Licensing Department, July marked the highest sales so far with more than $40 million in combined medical-use and adult-use sales.
According to numbers provided by Regulation and Licensing, since recreational-use sales started in April, New Mexico has seen a total of about $196 million worth of cannabis sales. About $112 million was for adult-use sales which are taxed by both gross receipts and cannabis excise taxes. The total amount of sales since April, multiplied by the 12 percent cannabis excise tax signals more than $10.5 million in tax revenue, not counting gross receipts taxes on cannabis and related accessories retails might sell. But according to numbers reported by the Taxation and Revenue Department, the state is due about $9.9 million in cannabis excise tax revenue.
Charlie Moore, a spokesperson for the tax department, told NM Political Report that the difference in numbers is likely due to not all businesses filing taxes on time.
“The excise tax numbers we provide are a snapshot in time – it’s how much has been reported to us as of the date we run the query,” Moore said. “Though the deadline to report is the 25th of the month, some businesses may be reporting late.”
The difference between what the tax department has reported and the calculation based on what the Regulation and Licensing has reported is nearly $700,000. Still, accounting for just the cannabis excise tax, the state is a little less than halfway to the $22 million Taxation and Revenue Secretary Stephanie Schardin Clarke projected the state will see by the end of the fiscal year. That latest projection is about $5 million less than what was projected when the Legislature and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham legalized adult-use cannabis. New Mexico House Majority Leader Javier Martínez recently told NM Political Report that initial projections were based mostly on speculation since there was no data to base them on at the time. The Legislature has not appropriated any cannabis tax revenue, so that money is currently going to the state’s general fund. But Martínez also signaled that there may not be an aggressive push from leaders to create recurring appropriations from cannabis tax revenue since the state is expected to see a general increase in revenue in the next several months.
