$616,880,000 / £312,800,000
NIS News Bulletin
State Earns 400 Million Euros a Year from Cannabis Bars
AMSTERDAM, 03/05/08 - The Dutch state earns 400 million euros annually in
tax revenues from 'coffee shops,' as the Dutch cannabis cafes are called.
Sales in the sector total around 2 billion euros, according to
conservative estimates by TV programme Re****ter.
Re****ter calculates that the some 730 coffee shops in the Netherlands sell
around 265,000 kilos of ha****sh and cannabis annually. The bulk of this is
grown in the Netherlands. Although coffee-shop owners do not have to pay
VAT, the tax service does calculate income tax at the highest rate of
around 52 percent.
In fixing the tax rate, the tax service assumes that the selling price of
grass is twice the purchasing price. In Amsterdam, where coffee shops
often have non-price-conscious foreign tourists as customers, the taxman
actually applies gross profit margins of 150 to 180 percent.
The finance ministry claimed in a reaction that it does not know how much
tax the 730 coffee-shops pay. Tax inspectors who wish to remain anonymous
suggest "they do not want to know about it in The Hague, as it is all much
too politically sensitive," according to Re****ter.
The re****t reveals that sales of ha****sh im****ted from abroad are much
smaller than sales of home-grown grass. More cannabis is actually produced
in the Netherlands than is consumed domestically. An estimated 60 percent
of the cannabis is ex****ted; no tax is levied on this.
"As ex****t product, Dutch cannabis comes second or third after cucumbers
and tomatoes. Germany and the United Kingdom are big customers," said
police commissioner Max Daniel, responsible for combating the
organised crime behind cannabis-growing.
Although police destroy 15 cannabis nurseries daily, the raids have no
effect on the supply but only on the price of the cannabis. The growers
want compensation for the bigger chance of being caught in the price they
get for their grass. And the tax service benefits from this too, the
re****tage reveals.
http://www.nisnews.nl/public/030508_1.htm
--
Dr John Watson
Baker Street
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