Cannabis Tax Revenue Fuels Continued Economic Expansion In Colorado

Katelyn Baker

Well-Known Member
While most of the US economy is still struggling to recover from the 2008 housing market crash and recession, one state in particular is seeing record breaking job growth, and is generating more payroll jobs per month than any other state in the nation.

That state is Colorado.

Colorado legalized recreational marijuana back in 2012, and implemented a 2.9% medical, 10% recreational sales tax on the herb as a fiscal weapon that would bring in truckloads of new tax dollars for the state, propelling it to one of the wealthiest, most economically stable states in the country.

Colorado collected a total of 61 million dollars of tax revenue in 2014, a figure which skyrocketed in 2015 to a whopping 97 million dollars!

State officials have used this money to help the homeless, with the city of Aurora leading the charge by generously allocating 1.5 million dollars towards the effort, with $200,000 of it going to the Colfax Network, a non-profit organization whose primary objective is supporting families that are living in motels.

But that's not all.

The state has also used some of the surplus tax revenue collected from legal pot sales to strengthen their education system, increase behavioral health services, and even to help fund programs for substance abuse prevention.

This healthy economy has attracted a variety of entrepreneurs and new business owners who created a record breaking 100,000 + new businesses in 2015, one of the highest rates in the entire country. This growth was seen not only in the marijuana related sector, but also overflowed into the Colorado housing market, which has seen a steady incline in median sales price since the legalization first went into effect in late 2012.

Since legalization, the Colorado housing market has had a strong economic upturn with very low inventory, leading to an extremely high demand for homes, driving the sales and rental prices through the roof. Aurora is currently the city in Colorado with the highest average rent, breaking the $1,300 per month mark. Other Colorado cities such as Pueblo and Colorado Springs will likely continue to follow this trend, although there is some fluctuation once you get outside of the Denver metro area, which shows the strongest numbers by far out of the entire state.

This explosion of the Colorado housing market has led to a large influx of real estate investors who advertise "We Buy Ugly Houses Colorado Springs" in order to attract clients with distressed properties who may be looking to sell their homes quickly for cash. These investors will typically buy a distressed property at a discounted, wholesale price, then fix up the property to full market value and then rent it out to a local tenant or resell it on the open market. These "fix and flips" can usually net an investor anywhere from $5,000 to $60,000 depending on the purchase price, condition of the property, and after repair value, which is calculated by running a "comparative market analysis" on similar homes that were recently sold in the same market.

Overall, Colorado has seen some truly amazing economic benefits post-legalization, that continue to expand in the 2016 fiscal year. It will be interesting to compare the numbers from this year with previous years, and see how much growth was experienced in 2016 compared with 2014 and 13. With this stable economic growth and increased demand for housing, Colorado and all of its major cities are on the fast track to sustainable wealth, with Denver and Colorado Springs rated as two of the most desirable places to live in the entire country.

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News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Cannabis Tax Revenue Fuels Continued Economic Expansion In Colorado
Author: Brian Rudderow
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