<arent non-profit charities and businesses tax-exempt? wouldnt it make more sense to make this a FOR profit business and tax the dispensaries?>

Tax exempt does not mean tax free. Tax exempt means that the business can take donations and give you a tax exemption for giving the donation. For instance, if you donated a hundred dollars to your favorite dispensary you can take about five dollars of that off your taxes. However, if you buy $100 worth of pot from your dispensary, that is classified by the IRS as a retail transaction and the dispensary is taxed for that $100 at a higher rate than they would be taxed for a donation.

This is why CPAs who specialize in non-profit taxation are so weird, anally retentive and tend to have OCD. There are different levels of tax exemption. If you go to a church sponsored dispensary which is operated on church owned property, chances are that dispensary is paying next to nothing in taxes. There are so many exceptions and double backs in church taxation that the IRS will need to see some blatant abuse before they go in. My father was a Treasury Agent and his team investigated the Archdiocese of New York for tax abuse back in the 60s. It took them two years to discover what the problem was and another six years of court to get the archdiocese to divest themselves of 100 square acres of slum apartments in Harlem.

It sounds to me that the Obamanation is planning to go after the California dispensaries through the tax courts. Dispensaries are considered special interest non-profits and their tax status limits them to selling to sick people. California has one definition of sick people. The IRS may decide to challenge that definition in court. They may decide that PTSD or heart conditions do not constitute sick under the IRS non-profit tax codes. Then they will try to close the dispensaries through tax court.

excess profit should be invested for the good of the collective .... people that work (growing/tending) can be compensated a fair ammount for their work .... as oppoced to a CEO and a Board that gets all the profits while workers and parients pay for the costs plus profits

<<<more sense to make this a FOR profit business and tax the dispensaries?>>>

some people would like to only see a few dispensaries that pay huge taxes than a mom/pop's type of business .. in Oakland, you need $30,000 just to pay for a permit to open a dispensary ... and even now, if you offer $50,000 you still can not get in ... how many small scale growers can do that ?

what i see is that this is been played to profit a few business that can afford to pay that high cost permits and the Tax collectors at the expense of the patients that need the medicine... in the end, is the medical cannabis patienst the ones that will pay for all .... example YES 390, will increase tax to $50 per ounce ... and send to a long time in jail the ones that grow and dont have a medical cannabis permit ... it really has nothing to do with legalization and a lot to do with making profit

why just no allow all people (21 and older) to grow it free ? only the Jack Herer initiative has that ,,,, all others are all trying to exploit medical cannabis and their users

definately know about this - non profit does not mean u don't make any money - for instance, some of these conservative non profit organizations pay their "non-profit" workers spectacular salaries. It just means that your corporation does not turn a profit at the end of the year. I hope to drive profits from growing into our Adopt a Hospice program as well as our Help a Handicapped Grower program and I'm trying to figure out exactly how to work that? Ulitimately, I hope to drive profits further into other "free" programs that help handicapped people who are not even growers - may have to start another non profit to accomplish that but SMMR grow sales should be able to fund all of this if I can just get the state approval - steady as she grows, man.
By setting up this non profit system the state government here has unwittingly opened up a virtual hall of mirrors of possibilities to bend this system to the good of the people - I see SMMR and the growing as but a stepping stone to hopefully much more

Down the road regulation and corporatization loom as the real future problems, as I see it. I like to think I'm pretty good at looking ahead and no doubt in my mind that our sick society with is ass-fucking capitalism will somehow find a way to completely ruin this little plant

grow you own, man, and plant it everywhere you can people