KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – The price Missourians pay for marijuana could soon be getting higher. On Tuesday, many ballots across Missouri will have a pot tax on them.
Currently, marijuana has a sales tax of 6% across the state of Missouri. On April 4, several counties in the Kansas City area will ask voters to approve a 3% county sales tax on marijuana. Jackson, Platte, Clay, and Cass counties will all have the 3% sales tax on the ballot.
At the same time, some cities in those counties will also ask the voters to approve a 3% city sales tax on marijuana. This includes Kansas City, Lee’s Summit and Independence — among others.
This creates a “tax stack,” where two local taxes are placed on the same good.
KCTV5 talked to Missouri State Representative Aaron McMullen (R-Independence), who told us the tax stack wasn’t the intention of the amendment that legalized marijuana.
“I think this is kind of a unique situation, because we’ve never had this amount of revenue come in immediately,” McMullen said. “We have all these municipalities looking at it and wanting to get a piece of it.”
The pie is quite large. In February alone, the state of Missouri saw more than $100 million worth of marijuana sold. KCTV5 reached out to the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association and they told us stacking taxes violates Missouri’s constitution:
“Article 14 of the Missouri Constitution specifies that sales that take place inside the city limits can be taxed by the municipality, whereas…
