 So I apologize, it's not too bad, this is just our first walkthrough, we do a brief walkthrough so we know what everything on our wall is before we start deciding if we're going to go forward with it or if we're going to decorate a Christmas tree. You've got more options than we do in transportation, we only have one bill up on our wall. Well, we only had three until about three days ago, so we now have an abundance of riches to get through, so we're going to try to do most of that today, so we're off. So, for the record, Senator Perksley questions, I had, after I got elected and went to my orientation, found out that I could do bill requests from Ledge Council. So I started thinking about bills I'm interested in supporting our childcare program, which is continually underfunded and over-prescribed. So a report that I was familiar from sitting in the wings of this committee was the tax expenditures report. So I was looking through that report and said, like, oh, we do not have the sales tax on candy. And thinking of children, I thought there was a connection there. So if we could tax candy, add the 6% sales tax to candy, that money could help shut up their financial assistance program. If I sent that idea to Ledge Council, they wrote a bill and balled off in here. I have talked to senators in the sense that this was introduced that said, like, yeah, nice try, we've tried it 16 other times and never go nowhere. I need more money there. Jim Harrison is in the house now, not as a lobbyist, but he had his legendary shopping bag. And there's, because we exempted, I don't know. Right. It gets messier. The yogurt covered this and it's... Is this a candy or is it a snack? You got it. And he just keeps... So to speak to that a little bit, this is slowly happening in other states. So I found 12 other states that use the same definition that Ledge Council... Maybe that's why Ledge Council picked that. I didn't pick this definition because I didn't know that the definition was an issue. So as more and more states pick an issue on how to define candy, maybe it becomes a little easier for distributors and store owners to know. The other thing that I'd say to that point is I've also learned through my time in transportation, the chair who owns a store that does sales tax on items, is that there are other items where it's kind of unclear. So we're already living in a system where store owners have to decide, do I... Sales tax? Is this... Is this... Get the sales tax, sir. Ice is taxable. Yeah. Mazelons talk about... The ice. Yeah. So that's... So we're already living with the uncertainty of whether you tax ice or not. And he had some other examples out there. So I think we could live with some looseness around the definition of candy and survive. And still, one, have this revenue for a needed source and the exemption if we don't like exemptions. Part of it is if we've got other states doing it, then we may find that some of the larger retailers have ICU codes that will just get read. That's one of the issues is how do I code it and what do I code it, but... Right. There's... It does take a while for ideas to find... This might be the year. This might be the year. There's 16 that have... Or maybe even more that tax it, but 12 that use that same definition. 16 states. Yeah. Okay. The big question. Maple sugar. I don't know what's looking for definition. Yes, it says natural or artificial sweetener. I think yes is the answer there. That was one of the death knells. Right, yeah. We were getting maple candy. Right. So... I'm only doing an amendment that I mentioned. I don't think that would quite be legal right now. Maple beer except from the anti-taxation? Just a thought. No. Hard cider? No. We charge... You do that? Yeah. So... Yeah. They work through apple cider. So this is the... How much of maple candy are we on? Yeah. It's not maple syrup. No. How much money, by the way, are we talking about? I think Joint Fiscal had sent me an estimate. I think I got it from Lech Council of just a couple of million dollars. It wasn't a huge number. And I think that was probably another reason why it gets killed. It gets complicated and you're all like, I'm working on 1.5 million dollars. Well, for childcare? Yeah, I thought that the childcare thing to talk about is just that notion of tax and everything. Because, you know, we're helping ourselves with all these tax exemptions. Yeah. It becomes complex to administer. They don't bring a lot of revenue. It becomes a nightmare for retailers to deal with. The public sort of doesn't understand it. I don't understand it. I think you're voting on this stuff for years. Yeah. Yeah. It would be a lot simpler if we said anything that is sold at a convenience store to find a convenience store is passable. Right? I agree. In fact, I think others... I thought that, so I looked into it. I think other states get around that. So if it's in a grocery store, we're going to call it food. If it's in a convenience store, we're going to call it candy or luxury food. A lot of not food. But I don't know how you define that. What do you do with a Walmart superstore? Yeah. In some communities, they're a convenience store. They're a grocery store. Yeah. In Vermont, in a large number of communities. So that's the issue. I'm glad you're going to dedicate all your time to it. Well, this is one that, if it survives, may make it onto a Christmas tree. It'll be interesting to see what the New Tax Commission says about taxing services. Because that was the recommendation of the last one. And if you've taxed enough, you know, I've spread it out, you could lower the rate significantly. And there is a objection to that. You know, I heard, of course, that once the tax rate got lower, it becomes easier for the legislators to say, well, let's just add another quarter percent. And in five years, you're back to where you were before with a wider base. But that also runs into the problem that everybody will still have that thing that they think should be exempted from it and you're back to the Christmas tree again. Taxido rentals are exempted. Are exempted? They are. What crowns, Madam Chair? What crowns? What about the prom dresses? I don't think prom dresses are exempted. Oh, I don't know about this. That's not a sexist. I think bridal gowns should also be exempted. But they're clothing. Oh, because it's a rental. Well, there's lots of, well, never mind. About to spiral down. It's too early in the week and it's too early in the session to be getting this whipping. It's nine o'clock at night. Let me get this for you. Not? Yeah. Okay. All right. Peter, come on here. Sure. Okay. This is just after... Bobby's not here today? Correct. Ah, all right. Oh, he's here. So maybe, Peter, while you're here you can just walk us through the F-77 at the same time. Sure. So Peter Griffin office of the legislative council go over F-71 and F-77 explaining F-71 as a fairly simple bill. Right now we exempt food from the sales tax. Yes. Andy is included as food so it is currently exempt. The language you see in front of me on page one is to add candy to the list of things that is not considered food therefore subjecting it to the sales tax. The definition of candy down the bottom of the page and back to page two the senator personally noted a number of other states have that same definition. Vermont is a member of the streamlined sales and use tax agreement and as such we agree to use a set of common definitions. This language about candy comes from and there are other streamlined states that have worked with this definition both in terms of implementation and interpretation. I've been here now long enough I've seen now representative Harrison do his presentation. He would often complain about that. The definition talks about candy shall not include any preparation containing flour. The streamline group was to distinguish cakes and pastries but there are certain types of he always pulls out certain types of things that you think of as being candy that has flour. Way to take cat. Something. But I mean it's not really I just wanted to flag. I know when I look at our kid cat is a candle. You're shredding. That's where that definition came from. It would be the streamline definition we would be using as long as we're part of that agreement. The other issue I wanted to flag for you is that it makes this a little bit different. I know this issue has come before in the past but this year is a little bit different in that all the sales tax revenue now goes into the education fund. So if you like, I personally would like to do make it a change in law that brings in more sales tax revenue but he would like to spend it on something that's not an education currently an education fund expense. So that's why there's language on the second and third sections back here allowing me to come out of the end fund for childcare financial assistance program payments. And I just wanted to throw that out there for you because I didn't want to do that. That is a new dynamic this year when you're talking about sales tax exemptions and the other. But the general fund should have more money because we're not doing it properly because we're losing the sales tax so no we don't have more money. We lost the sales tax revenue but we're getting to keep the transfer to the end fund. So but the sales tax came in a little ahead of projection even though we knew the way fair was likely to come down, it did come down before we went home. But it does prove signature prox supposition that we haven't even done this for one year and we've now got two proposals to steal it. So we'll see. I hope the house has said something at least the chair has like that chance but we'll see where that goes. Okay. All right. That's that. All right. So on to S77. Do you know how much that we raised? The candy. Yeah. I think Senator Ferguson went for five. He said two. I just said two. Yeah. That's what he said. One to three. One to three million. One to three million. That's a lot of good. But as the chair said child care that could be. Oh I see what you're saying in terms of candy. Okay. This is probably not a good week to be talking about tax and candy. Next week. It's Valentine's Day. Put that on you forever and get you in the water so you don't remember. Yeah. He got something for your sweetie there. S77. Chocolate is good. Is that candy? That's candy. S77 is a bill introduced by Senator Starr that has to do with the land gains tax. I believe Graham was in here last week before we did a presentation on the land gains tax. The administration has a proposal to repeal the land gains tax. This bill is more narrow. It adds to the list of exemptions from the land gains tax. Land that is purchased by the United States, the state of Vermont or the instrumentalities and agencies. It's a slightly awkward position. I'm not here to pitch the bill but I've worked with Senator Starr that the genesis of this bill was with a constituent concern and I think Senator Starr would be more able to articulate the problems around that. But basically there was a land purchase, I believe it was by municipality and the land being purchased for public use and they were issued by the land gains tax was due. And the thinking was this wasn't actually in theory, it was originally designed to cut down land speculation and flipping and the thinking was that if the purpose of the purchase is for public use, it's not for some sort of for profit development it might make sense to add those to the list of exemptions. They take it by eminent domain but you didn't want to sell it. Are you a public user or do you think it would be another kind of I was thinking about the transaction but I believe there's an attorney in Burby who had a client who sold some land to municipality and the question arose about whether the land changed tax would be due. This doesn't make sense, this isn't a land speculation situation this is somebody who's conducting an online transaction. Every time Bobby comes in here with a land or tax thing, I'm kind of curious. Is it pencil, do you see if it wants this? Who's the puppet master? Who's the master? We're going to deal with it on the merits, we have another bill that wouldn't actually do away with the land because the issue it was set up to prevent is pretty much gone now with all the local planning except in Orange County yes. Yes. Speculation, we don't I'm writing an example but it does seem, especially if we take it by eminent domain that then charging with speculation tax is a little difficult. All right, Senator you have something you wanted to share? We did a tour of the state maybe four years ago on the current use issues we're dealing with 10% penalty and what we found was that many, many of the people who engaged in the current use started the late 70s and forest husbandry and produced beautiful woodlots and what is happening to them is someone calls up and says, why buy the woodlot? The first thing they do is they write a check for 10% of the woodlot that they buy which releases them from all of their requirements for forest management that were in place for 40 years when it was on current use and then they cut as much as they can within the clear-cutting laws and then they call it the real term they say we'll just divide it up into most lots you could possibly divide up or I want it on the market and they're doing this before the last ship to send it off the property Where? Where? They called me to do that they've done it in several places in Washington and throughout the state there's not a lot of it going on They're building housing? They divide the land up into smaller plots and sell it because they're not in the land business they're in the harvesting of forest resources business and they get the mark up on the land which is substantial because they buy it at a 100 acre price they liquidate the lumber and then they buy it up and sell it and you want it the next one Let's ask the tax department if they can document that because that would be something to document Do you have a logic? The president of the forest association of the forest Yeah, that's what it is right? Putts? It's a logic President of the forest President of the forest part of the party Okay, that's good to know People from where are you from? Oklahoma You don't have the bush forest Could I just ask you to go back to the bill at hand, or maybe this is for others as well. In the case of somebody who sells their land to the public's use, would the tax commissioner have authority to waive the land-gain tax if they were petitioned? There wouldn't be any statutory basis for the commissioner trying to think of this as a general life equity authority, there's not, and I'm trying to think, sometimes these list of exemptions, the last one we'll say, I have to catch all of them, but there's not in this particular tax. And even then we have some, I guess we can't delegate our authority to tax, but we could probably delegate authority to contribute tax. We've had issues where we cannot delegate, say the commissioner can put a tax on if he thinks it's necessary, because we can't, the legislature can't delegate its taxing authorities, my understanding, but maybe we could not have the same issue with he could waive the tax for good cause, because one of these guys might buy it up hearing that the town wants to buy it, buy it for the widow lady dirt chief and sell it to the state or the state of the park or something. So it'd be interesting to look at. We'll have Senator Starr in to let them tell us about this one, and we'll probably, well if we do the other bill we won't have to worry about this one. If we don't do the other bill this might be our first step in that direction. But if we are seeing the situation that Senator McDonald says then that should give us pause. So we'll see if we can trace that down either through the fosters or through the tax department, because they ought to know what they're seeing in land gains and who's paying it and who's not. Speaking of who's not, the, I got a whistle baller who can't find the whistle, who says that a lot of the EB-5 land was exchanged in ending taxes weren't paid and it was all known for echelons of public and different area of public accusations. I think we ought to, before we make any move, we ought to get the entire picture on this. See, it sounds so simple now, we're thinking about people buying up forest land and then stripping it and then selling off smaller lots of strip land. Next one is Recreation of Till, we'll be down at two. Oh, okay, he's on his way. And Nick is Roberto here, okay, good. So, thank you Peter. Moving everything up, because I'm going to, we did away with the break, so I've got at least three of you that need to drive to Chittenden County and giving your experience getting there last week. I'm going to try and get you out of here before you start getting whatever kind of mess Mother Nature is going to give us at rush hour. We're going to keep looking right through. Okay, oh, this is e-cigarettes. Okay, talk to us. So, for the record, I'm Senator George Still from Jericho, and I'm Chair, members of the committee, thanks for hearing about H-47. I don't know what kind of detail you want to hear about it. Did you just walk through it? No, no, no, I was here to walk us through it. So, this is our first walk-through. You can give us the background why you did it. We did it last year, probably not to the extent of this film, but we did a vaping tax, which got vetoed. Actually, I don't think it ever made it to veto. I think it came back to us last year with an opiate tax. It was an opiate tax. We didn't have to take any testimony in the house. It was our Christmas tree. So, hopefully, kind of speaking to the choir, this bill is a revenue, raised a very small amount of revenue. The real point of this bill is the health care issue. In December of 2018, the Surgeon General issued an advisory. It's sort of an unusual thing for the Surgeon General to do. And what prompted him to do that was that the one-year data between 2017 and 2018 showed a 78% increase e-cigarette use in high school students, 78% in one year, and in middle school students, 48% in one year. So, this was a huge increase. And it prompted him to say, this is an epidemic and we need to do something about it promptly. So, what this bill does, age 47, is to simply put the same tax on the e-cigarettes and the paraphernalia that go with them as we have on what's called other tobacco products. Okay, this is the paraphernalia. And last year, I think we just did the liquid inserts. Yeah, we started off last year with the same stuff and it ended up coming out of our committee with this bill. Just the liquids. This year it's both. And so it just treats these the same as it would other tobacco products. So, you know, I mean, you all know how addictive nicotine is. It's horrible. I mean, you know, the companies know that if somebody gets to 21 years old without becoming addicted, they're probably never going to get addicted. So, you know, what we have is these vaping things which are going wild in the schools, which, you know, a three ML cartridge of these things contains as much nicotine as a whole pack of cigarettes. A little cartridge. A little cartridge with three MLs of fluid in it has as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes. So, you know, higher nicotine levels, younger brains, worse addiction, you know, the statistics, 10,000 kids alive today in Vermont are going to die from tobacco related illnesses. They're going to die an average 10 years sooner than they would otherwise. And if you've ever watched anybody die from emphysema, it's ugly. It's just years of not being able to get in that area. It's a horrible disease. So, the e-cigarettes addiction, the nicotine addiction, also increases the likelihood of, you know, other addictions later on. And so this has really become a public health crisis. And, you know, the kids who start with the e-cigarettes are four times as likely to become regular smokers, regular tobacco smokers, as kids who don't use the e-cigarettes. They clearly lead to a traumatic increase. And, you know, and country-wide we're up to 20% of kids in high school who are using these things. So, you know, four times as likely to become regular tobacco smokers, teenage regular tobacco smokers, three out of four become lifetime smokers. So, that 10,000 number of kids who are alive, the Department of Health uses 10,000 kids who are going to die who are alive today in Vermont, that's going to go through the roof. And that's going to be much higher than 10,000 if we don't do anything. So, I stopped in my local store the night before we reported this on the floor. I was interested in the pricing of these things, and there right on the counter was, you know, a two-pack of these little jewel things, and it was $9.99. And one pack of cigarettes on average in the state is $9.62. Okay, so what you got is these things in all these flavors, with all this social media advertising they're doing, in price to about half the price of cigarettes. I mean, the intent here is very obvious to get these kids sucked in. We also know that the taxes work with youth to reduce tobacco use, these tobacco products. And, you know, historically, every 10% you raise the tax on these things, you reduce utilization 3 to 5%. You know, so, you know, we know the taxes have a word. There are 10 other states who currently taxed these cigarettes. The highest is Minnesota, which taxes at 95% of the wholesale level. Our tax is 92% of the wholesale level. Are we talking about the paraphernalia or just liquid? Both. Both. Some cigarettes, I'm trying to ask. So, there are some states that don't tax them at all? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, yeah. So, there are 10 states who already taxed them. And, you know, some of those taxed the way we're talking about it, the wholesale level, some of them taxed by how much liquid, just the liquid how much you're selling. But right now, in front of legislators, 22 additional states have bills to start taxing them. He's a brand new. He's only been around for 12 years. Okay. So, you know, these things, the 22 states who are looking at it, almost all of them are using the system we're talking about, which is the wholesale value. And they range from 95% increase in Washington state to 24% increase in India and everywhere between those. So, you know, I mean, I just want to say these things are not smoking cessation devices. I've found a lot of really nasty humans. Tell me how I was killing people because these were saving lives. And there's just no evidence that that's true. The fact that they've only been around 10 years or 12 years, you can't possibly know the long-term health effects of these things. You know, I mean, in one study out of the University of California, San Francisco, used in a certain way, one product, they introduced enough formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen in vapor. It's the equal, we're talking about 3 ml cartridge here. Five packs of cigarettes worth of formaldehyde. So, I mean, that doesn't say every one of these products. There's tremendous variation. There's 7,700 flavors out there. There's a ton of different, so we can't possibly know the long-term health effects, but let alone the variation from one to the other, whether some are going to be better than cigarettes, some are going to be worse than cigarettes, clearly fewer toxins come out. You know, you get 600 toxins, or 60 toxins instead of 6,000 toxins. It's not just about how many toxins there are. And then the question comes up, okay, so why the paraphernalia? And that's a health issue too. With the paraphernalia, it turns out that the eating coil ends up contributing a bunch of heavy metals into the vapor. And the vapor of these things contains about 25 times the lead, or some of the other heavy metals that you would find in the liquid. And it's this, the coil itself is kind of disintegrating. So the vaping device itself is part of the health risk with these things, the health concern. It was just, that's our news work on a teenager that was killed because one blew up. And that's not the first. It's the ones that don't have the battery. There's all different kinds. Yes, there's so much variation in these things. So anyway, I guess I would say we know that big battles buying up these companies, about 30-35% of Jewel, which has been a really quickly exploding company, they just bought a Phil Morris subsidiary which is about 35% of Jewel in the last three months. You know, I applaud the governor for recognizing this epidemic and, you know, this will move pretty quickly out of our committee and the House for its quite amazing that I'm close. So, you know, I think it's important. I don't think it's the whole answer in and of itself. I think that we need to do some additional things too. But, you know, in terms of what we've come to the finance committee, this is the first base. Questions? Yeah. So the nasty emails we got were from adults saying it takes away a substitute for cigarettes? Yeah. You know, make them more expensive and, you know, real. It was more of a mitigation, right? That's what they thought. Like, you know, there was a transition away. Every one of the users have done that. These things are helping stop. Right. So they have more nicotine. Yeah, they have more nicotine and the majority, significant majority of people who try to use them for stop, for stopping end up as tool users. They smoke and do these. And even in the, there was a real recent article out of the UK about the first randomized controlled trial that shows that helps people stop smoking. But when you read the dang article, what it did was get people to just switch to e-cigarettes. The number who actually stopped using nicotine products was no different than the number that stopped using it when they don't try any aid. A recent one. Yeah, that's it. If you look at the details. But George, to go back to what you were saying earlier, I mean, I have people in my own family that emphysema and it actually was a dramatic improvement to their health and well-being to switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping. I'm not saying that I want them using anything, but I understand that's anecdotal, but I know that their quality of life did drastically improve when they stopped smoking. And it may very well be that some of these are safer and some of these are not safer. And it's just, you know, the federal government's regulating what's in the liquids, but they push that back to 2022. So, I mean, you could put anything in there right now. There's nobody checking. You know, people that went from cigarettes. Exactly. Yeah, we had a gentleman in last year. Oh, that's right. Where some of these don't have nicotine. They're just... But again, health risks that come out of that, that's not related to the nicotine, the heavy metals, that's not related to the liquids. And talk to us about, I don't know anything about these things, so when you say there's this many milliliters in it, and so how many doses are in... Three. Up to 200 points, I guess. That's like a pack of cigarettes. What did you say? Right, so I'm trying to figure out, like, if it is comparable to a pack of cigarettes, is it truly more nicotine? That's what I'm trying to figure out. No, it's in that three MLs, it's the same as one pack of cigarettes. Of nicotine, exactly. So I'm trying to get at how much are you... Depends. It pops from little drops. Some of these things now come with various nicotine levels. You can choose your nicotine level and the liquid. That might be where it helps some people, right, if you go down. You know, better than cigarettes is an awfully low bar. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, these things are helpful. We're not outlawing them. We're just saying they shouldn't be cheaper than, you know, half the price of the tobacco products. Well, I think, yeah, the price, the tax we have put on tobacco products, there should be some tax on it. I think we should argue about what the tax is and on what. And I'm sorry, there's no tax now? No sales tax. No sales tax. No additional tax. Talk to us about the pricing and the tax. Talk to us about the pricing of these things, these are the cigarettes and the taxes of our cigarettes versus the sales tax. So you know, in the average price, the sales tax applies to both the cigarettes and these. But the excise tax is only on tobacco products and other tobacco products. And how much is the excise tax on tobacco cigarettes? Oh, ours is now $3.08. That's different than this. Other tobacco products, like pipe tobacco or chew, or chaw, or anything else. No cigars. Well, those in cigarettes are taxed differently, but all the other tobacco products are taxed with 92% of wholesale. That's about, you know, thought to be equivalent to... So the tax which you're addressing is still right here. But the wholesale on this one is a lot higher. So you're doing the same percentage tax with your wholesale. Especially if you're pulling in the paraphernalia is a lot higher. Someone said it's like $8 on a pack of cigarettes and it's 8-something and it's 25-something on... When you buy that whole... Yeah, we'll get a right fist on the figure that out. But it's a higher base that we're starting with tax. Well, I mean, you know, for the liquids, the refills, you know, if there's some in two of them for $9.99, just to get convenience there, it's supposed to be the same price as anything. You know, it's pretty close to how these cigarettes are in cost. But you don't tax the matches. But the matches don't probably contribute to your health issue like the paraphernalia of this stuff. Well, you couldn't smoke the cigarettes without the matches and we don't tax the lighter. But again, those things don't contribute to the health consequences which these things do. Yeah, these coils do. That's the difference. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good luck. All right. We probably won't take this... It's an age bill, so... I know, I know. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. The fiscal law said in the first year, in the first year, $850,000 and in subsequent years, it goes up to... it goes up to about a million in the first year. It goes up because, you know, some people are very sensitive and that's really who we're aiming at. I see. But not everybody's that sensitive. I miss that. You said it before. You know, so, you know, we're hoping... you know, it starts at $850,000 and then it goes up, so people will respond to the initial price and say no, and then... And again, you know, various populations have different prices to, you know, of people who are really at the U.S. who is the most price sensitive, but some other folks... These companies are very attractive marketers. Does this touch on the internet? A little bit about that. Okay, so that's another bill. That's age 26, which is in how human services right now and they're going to pay testimony upon that. I present that to them. And, you know, to me, we've got a three-legged stool here. Okay? The three things that will work together are to increase the cost, to raise the smoking and vaping age to 21 and to get rid of the e-cigarette sales because that's what we're doing in this bill. And you can go online. Can we do that? Yeah, I'm going to get rid of the internet sales. Yeah, we don't like the cigarettes. I mean, we're a track across it. The greater the license of it. The sex rate. But, you know, when... I went online to say in their age check and the sites I went to was just a checkbox. I had to just say, yes, I'm 18. I mean, a 10-year-old kid, if they have a gift card or something, they could go on and order this stuff. You know? And so, you know, unlike teenage smokers, so teenage smokers, 90% would get the tobacco products from their buddies who are a little older between 18 and 21. It's only about 50% of this stuff because so many kids come online and buy it. So why didn't you combine those things in this bill and where it puts the status of... Because I know there are multiple communities in ours. This was sort of urgent, and especially once the governor was on board with it. I don't mean to be rude, but, you know, we got so close with the Tobacco 21, but not succeeded. I didn't want to get nothing. Just out of curiosity, you know, because industry's then advocating specifically against this proposal. I've got a lot of identical letters, word for word. Disappointed to learn the Vermont legislators considered increasing Vermont's cigarette excise tax by a dollar 25 a pack and 308 to 433 and imposing a brand new 92% tax on tobacco products. You know whether or not there is, in fact, an industry-led opposition? I don't know for a fact, but I would be highly suspicious. You get three or four of the exact same letters. You get suspicious. Well, and the grocers might be in opposition to this, too. I don't know. The one grocery we have in the house was very supportive. Okay. It was on the committee to pass it out. I'm almost in here for my vape shops. Yeah, I am, too. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Roberto, you're next in line. Now to this, we're going to go to the cannabis. This is our smoking. Good afternoon for the record. We're from the Office of Legislative Council. I'm going to be doing a brief walk-in today of age 37. I think this is your first time here, so you know us? A few of you, yes. A few? Okay, maybe we'll go around, start with Senator Campion. Senator Campion from Bennington County. Senator Valentine from Wyndham County. Senator Pearson from Chittenden County. And from Washington County. Michael Soraka from Chittenden County. Randy Brock from Franklin County. And part of Randall County. And where do you live? Colchester. So that's... Yeah. But we'll still be there. So you have no friends here? No, that's harsh. We've got nothing but friends here. Okay, walk us through. As Representative Till already spoke quite a bit on, this bill proposes to impose on e-cigarettes and the liquid that is used within e-cigarettes using liquids with nicotine or not to the 92% wholesale tax that is currently imposed on other tobacco products. The bill has just two sections. Section one is the main one of the bill. Section one proposes to amend section 7,702 of Title 32, specifically in Subdivision 15 by including the following language. I don't know. We have copies of the bill. I'll just read the underlying part, which is what the bill is proposing to include. It reads as this. It includes other tobacco products, which include products sold as a tobacco substitute as defined in Title 7 of the BSA Section 1001, Subdivision 8 and including any liquids with nicotine based or not or delivery devices sold separately for use with a tobacco substitute. What this proposal effectively does, as I previously mentioned, is impose upon e-cigarettes and the liquid that is used within them to the tax that is imposed on other tobacco products, which is a wholesale tax of 92%. This tax is found in Section 7,811 of Title 32. Other than that, the second section of the bill is just the effective date, which is currently set at July 1st of 2019. Any questions concerning that? The amount of the tax is it equivalent to what we put on also tobacco coming in on cigarettes? This is linking it. It's a bit different in terms of comparison. This is a wholesale tax of 92%. I believe cigarettes are subject to a stamp tax. It amounts to a certain dollar amount per pack of cigarettes. It's around three dollars, I believe. Do you still need a chewing gum and things like that? Do you need a prescription for that? And if not, would that be included? I believe you need a prescription. Suggest for other... Like a... No, you don't need. Because it's sort of a tobacco substitution. I'm posing out the prescription... No, it's not included. But the tax will be taxed. The tax will not be deducted. Because you don't need a script anymore. Or a patch. I just want to... It's on the chat. I understand that currently, e-cigarettes are not approved by the FDA as a smoking cessation device. So I understand that prescriptions aren't even offered. But it's something I'm looking for. Yeah, I'm just thinking nigger at gum. I don't think you need a prescription anymore. But it is a... It's over the counter. Yeah. But with that omission of a tobacco substitute, it says it refers to electronic syringe or other devices that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for tobacco cessation or other medical purposes. So that may be... No notation in the number one statute. All right. That would take us to get it right. Not the same. So I'm just curious why it also includes any liquids, whether nicotine-based or not, and what the thinking was there. What we're trying to do is direct the tax at tobacco products. I believe that's something that medicineitive TIL could address more fully. But I understand his concern was that a liquid that doesn't contain nicotine may be used by a minor, and it might eventually lead to the use of... And again, the underlying definition of a tobacco substitute refers to something that's designed to deliver nicotine or other substances into the body through inhaled vapor and that have not been approved. So what would that be, for example? Well, I gather we've heard testimony that there have been vaping-type devices that deliver fragrances or other things. I see. But that do not include nicotine, and those are covered as well. So they just sell a blueberry-flavored thing. Yeah. But I think what Representative TIL did tell us is that the heating coil can put... From albohide. From albohide, or other thing, metals into it, which are also not good. And what's your start? I mean, that was the argument that this was good for cessation, because you get that habit, your mouth, and having something there. And so, debate and use a non-nicotine order to cut yourself down. I remember we had some very emotional testimony last year with people who had cut themselves from three packs a day to, you know, minimal levels, or no levels of nicotine, but still use that kind of mouth-hunger thing to get by. So... Senator Beerson. We've talked a lot about 90% tax, but is that on the wholesale price or the retail, projected retail, how does that work? It's on the wholesale price. So when Representative Till testified that he saw a two-pack for nine bucks or something, he said, we wouldn't really know. It's not going to add 92% to that price, correct? It's whatever that store paid. Paid, exactly. That is correct. Yeah, it'll up the whole deal. It'll definitely up that price. Right, but it won't be... I'm trying to figure out how we almost doubling. I think it might be good, and I know that you, Peter, because this is who gets what, to walk us through how we do tax cigarettes. Because for a while, we played with it every year. No matter what we did, little cigars seem to find a way to wiggle out. And every year, we had to make tweaks to little cigars. But I know there's floor taxes, and there's stamps, and it's a fairly complicated system. So, you know, what we'll make is up again. I think that's where we'll start is how we tax tobacco. This sounds more like alcohol, to just do an excise tax at the wholesale level. Thank you. Okay, we're a cannabis. It is moving. We've been asked to be ready to get this out by next Friday, if possible. Judiciary gets it out, but it's getting its recommendations from GovOps. And they will be included. They voted out Friday. We're not going to get it before Wednesday unless somebody does a token session on Monday. So, we need to be ready to do this. I have scheduled Graham to come in and just walk us through other states' taxes. But I've already been told that we are much smaller. The third tier grower in Massachusetts was the largest tier we envisioned the last time we did a bill. So, we're really a world unto ourselves, which is normal. Or abnormal. Or abnormal. Well, we're abnormal, but I come from a peculiar, and so anyway, we're going to go through I've been trying to just get just kind of the sense as to how much money is involved. How much which gives us an idea of how much we can charge in fees because they have to use the amount of money we're making and so let's start with financial regulation and I've asked to this one Aaron right there because we heard a lot of concerns about banking and federal limitations on banks' ability to handle this money. Who's got ice cream or something upstairs? Oh, stairs. It's got apple pie, maple syrup ice cream or or maple ice cream or sweet cream. Oh dear. One at a time. Alright, I can't get when they do that. But just an idea of what kind of restrictions are we looking at when it came up is this we had these issues when we started medical marijuana and the concern was big bags of money carried around in store and have we made any progress or is that is there anyone that can actually handle financial transactions for these kinds of businesses? Sure. I think the short answer to that question is that there are institutions that are capable of lawfully abiding by the financial enforcement network guidance. The ultimate question is will they be willing to take on the risks inherent with doing so and that's the question I really can't answer for you. I suspect that if there is a large enough market looking for medical marijuana market currently it's just too small to really make it worth their while to take some of those risks on I think the possibility is that if there is a larger tax-regulate market I think I was on the Governor's tax-regulate subcommittee based on the 20-some of the tax rate we estimate that the market was 90 to 100 billion dollars you add in the economic multiplier effect of throw over to wholesaler and you're really starting to talk about a large volume of funds that are possible. So with medical marijuana market you said there's institutions that could meaning they have the capability or that they have legal authority. What I meant by that is that they have the compliance of the structures and controls in place that I as the banking regulator would feel comfortable with entering that. Ultimately their board of directors is going to make the decision as to sort of the direction they go. Is this still because I remember when we did medical marijuana and then I haven't been on judiciary since then that banks of the federal regulation were not allowed to do this and risk federal crackdown. Yeah, so it's sort of it is sort of murky you know by definition the funds derived from this activity are selling controlled substance therefore illegal to force money laundering FinCEN did issue guidance in the 2014 time frame based on the coal memos I'm sure you're all aware of which explains the direction and sort of the steps that institutions should take in order to meet their federal suspicious activity guidelines and sort of responsibilities however that didn't take away any of the legal risks that they face so depending on DOJ policy all bets are out the window. Are there other states that are using financial institutions in the way that we're talking about here? That's question one and question two what kinds of institutions are we talking about are there quick categories classes of institutions that would have the ability to do this? Sure, so we do have data from FinCEN and roughly 300 plus banks are filing reports on a regular basis on marijuana related distances we don't have any detail as to what kind of businesses those are and 25 credit unions are filing the same sort of reports with the feds or with us? That report goes to the federal government through the IRS and that's natural. Do we know which cool any of these institutions are or is it precipitated aggregate of numbers only? No, it's very sensitive and confidential so we don't know the specifics but we do know the aggregate data. But this is going to Washington so the chances are you might have some large national type institutions that would be I would gather that most of the banks and credit unions involved are state charter in their respective states just given the conversations I'm having I have had some conversations with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston about their feeling about their services being used to in this manner so whether that's fed wire so moving money from the institution to find equipment things like that. The only thing they'll tell us is that they don't want their services used for a legal activity they have access to all those suspicious activity reports just like we do so they should know who is doing it. But the FBI isn't showing up I mean I don't just for real estate we make a large deposit the FBI does check in so large cash transactions will get you on a special report and then other suspicious activity will get you on another one. So we haven't but today and today there's a lot more activity going on now than there used to be when we did Medical Marijuana we were one of the first now we're kind of slackers here we're coming from behind in the recreational cannabis but to date there has been no federal crackdown so it will depend on the individual banks and boards of directors correct. I believe the house financial services is tomorrow on the issue there's been some movement in the U.S. Senate about setting up standards so that if banks follow X, Y, and Z they will not be prosecuted on the money library. But right now we have one credit in serving the market. We do. Where is that? I don't know. I will say their name but our former commissioner publicly testified about that. So we do have one place that will which should keep you from the big bags of money being toted around the Friday nights. I'm not certain that one institution can handle the volumes of a full okay okay any questions it's gray and it's rocky I seem to recall there was a concern from tax that they would have to accept payments in cash we're not actually set up to do that so while we don't tax marijuana directly at the dispensaries those guys must pay payroll for other taxes are those coming in in cash or are they setting up to check it after that you know I don't know that specifically I would suspect that ultimately getting access to banking services really just makes life a lot easier for all of those reasons right there we'll have tax come tell us we have the medical marijuana as an experience and see how they're working after I just was meeting with my counterparts in New Hampshire yesterday their medical marijuana dispensaries are not served by any local banks they're served by a bank out of Massachusetts so I don't know that's an avenue that would help here is there any reason to believe that this one credit union would treat a recreational marijuana as if it were a medical marijuana um I don't think so I think ultimately it is the same same issues I don't think they're doing it for any other reason than they see members in need and they want to provide services to their members thank you Shane Lynn and one of us we just ask you to identify yourself for the record so we have a name to go with the voice this is state for posterity Shane Lynn executive director of Champlain Valley Dispensary Southern Vermont Wellness Brad Brough Champlain Valley Dispensary is in Burlington and I'm happy to answer any questions I didn't prepare any formal remarks I came here to answer questions public information at this point that we do bank with Vermont State Credit Union they do offer services to us lending is a different matter though that's an area that they're not comfortable with and then payroll is another area that they're not you know payroll companies aren't interested in doing payroll with us at the bank that's another area that's a little complicated but we do have a payroll on our own we do have a we do have a checking account they do take deposits you know we do not we don't have any credit cards like anything that's that's related to using your credit card for my company at this point is a personal credit card no company cards and then at the time of transaction to purchase medical cannabis it's either cash or debit cards again no credit cards are allowed so they're definitely larger players are definitely not touching cannabis related transactions you know in the sense of MasterCard Visa or any of the larger banks out there that would potentially process credit cards so it's cash or debit I can't write a check we do if you're if you're you know second, third visit I think theory I should be a regular if you're a dispensary ATMs we will we do have ATMs but the ATM companies will not allow them to be on dispensary property so they cannot be expressly rented or bought for cannabis businesses you've got to get a friendly neighbor we're the landlord and a common space in the building that you might be on so have you taken a look at any thoughts how long have you been in business? we're coming up on six years significant up your time yes I have looked at it we're supportive of a tax-regulate program at this point I think there's been recent news in Burlington of a shop selling right on Church Street we've seen our business decrease between 20 to 30% since last July and so the medical program people can go I think for their own I think for their own and sad to just the illegal market you always could grow your own for medical reasons you still have a sign up some of the issues there's a lot of hurdles there's fees associated with it so now you can just grow your own your neighbor probably grew as well so we've seen 5600 patients on the registry as a high it's down to 5300 right now so it's going backwards if it's 540 to go through and be sent would you expand your market or would you stay as a medical dispenser? we would most likely try to be involved in the tax-regulate market otherwise you'll see the continuation of what you're seeing and then back to some of the times the scales that we try to legalize for low cost without medical patients we're very heavily regulated by the DPS and those regulations obviously cost money and so we'd like to potentially see some of those things relaxed considering there's a tax-regulate market how do those two things we're regulated by the DPS okay DPS okay we'll set up yep Coal memo was mentioned earlier Coal memo was rescinded under Jeff Sessions and that was kind of a little nerve-wracking for the industry to see that Coal memo go away because of the assurances that it did give banks so there might have been some withdrawal from some of the institutions because of that we're hearing kind of some articles that if R is appointed AG he may bring back the Coal memo but there are a bunch of regulations kind of stipulated in the Coal memo that need to be followed for campus institutions or businesses like mine to kind of fall in compliance with Vincent Part of what we're looking at is fees, taxes and just I guess part of the concern is we don't know setting a fee to cover the cost of all the regulating everything that needs to be done which is yet to be named we figure out some of them and I guess I'm getting a better sense starting with knowing nothing about the amount of money that is involved and are we going to generate enough to be able to basically tax ourselves to regulate it you would be paying to regulate and I understand you a $25,000 fee for a dispensary license every year every year we renew each year so you know that's our renewal there's a $25,000 and then the fees from the patients that are paying $50 right now a year for an ID so those fees do add up and I think the fee structure is very important obviously in the tax regulator market for numerous reasons one would be to try to minimize the illegal market so how do you set that fee at a level that is the fee and the tax but it's really hard to get someone to come in and testify about the pricing in the illegal market so we're kind of going by hearsay you know it's what somebody who know somebody will tell you they pay on the street or from their neighbor which now they can't do legally but who knows $20 in cash changes hands $50 changes hands yeah I think the illegal market I think analysis can sell upwards to $400 $300 it really depends on quantity or quality and quantity both of those things together it is the larger the quantity the lower the price I'm afraid that some other markets have acreage other questions do you have an opinion of whether these two markets should be merged at all in I think it's S54 we do kind of leave the DPS and go under the you know in the hopes of that was to simplify it so that we didn't have two agencies out there and that the rules and the definitions were all similar because it would start to get confusing if there are different definitions of what even cannabis is if this is at all so our hope is that where it does end it's all kind of under one chapter and then can have subchapters under it to address us and then the perpetually market and that was in the future though it's not happening it was once we get the recreational market up then the goal is to get everything in under one of five and at that point there might be no illegal market if the feds make changes other questions okay thank you thank you okay Gwyn it's here hello Gwyn's not got from our legacy sometimes I guess some of the questions we came up and I was told today that they've gone up to a 2% sales, local options tax in judiciary for local options I think the but they said oh yeah you could have local zoning you just couldn't use local zoning to rule it out and get away from doing a public vote as to whether or not you would allow establishments in your account just trying to get some feedback what's the leads thinking and I'm pretty sure I would not like a cannabis store across the street from my middle school but and I want to make sure that you have that power thank you I was prepared to talk about a question that was proposed from your committee about whether or not a municipality could cap the number of establishments but I'd be happy to talk about that as well all of that so right now we'll start off with the fact that that means that municipalities don't have any control over anything until we're delegated that authority or authority that is applied from that direct authority so we can't cap some municipal or we can't cap cannabis establishments because we don't have that authority we don't have that authority for any can you cast establishment at all we can't cap like even liquor licenses we can't cap the amount of liquor establishments there are unless the board the liquor control board were to say that we could you have to have an actual statutory authority something is actually cited there they could say we want it but never get it I mean I live in Brookfield and you might say we want to have an establishment there's no place in Brookfield where you're going to get an establishment need to grow but even then you're not having a point of retail the one restaurant is home closed so but if you get even just to grow like you're now that is a business that has got payroll and can have more economic activity I mean there are ways that even if you're not in a retail setting the local community might benefit it depends on how big the scale is and whether or not there's local employees whether or not they're adding to the grand list because of whatever you think you're I mean I guess in Burlington yes well I don't think there's a growth facility that has run by one person that's that so I think there's going to be employees Burlington that have paid for tips okay we're not going there I'm just what's it we're not going there off the table but that is that that gift money does go part of it goes into the I think what we may want to find out is because the pilot money the pilot fund goes to every town any kind of a state facility right down to a salt shed so the interest is the lead no who doesn't have I know we know okay can you find that information for us maybe the Department of Taxes has some of that information yeah we'll find that out just how big who's in or how big a group is in and I think the revenue sharing part of the whole local option it's more like we want to make sure that municipalities are taking care of municipalities and we're not so we're not so dependent on the state to say like please can you give me money or expecting revenue down the road we want to start we want to start the dialogue saying you know what enough's enough we want to take care of our own and if we can generate even not be selfish about it and have a Burlington your mayor is on our board and he said this makes sense let's all be let's pay out to those communities even if they don't want it if South Burlington votes do not have it they're still going to have lead over people that are using and that are driving through I think they felt like they lost the battle with liquor and they want to change the dialogue moving forward and not be so heavily dependent on the property tax all the time so when you see an opportunity why not if you don't ask you're not going to get a lead over okay alright other questions thank you so much you appreciate that okay