A longtime Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official participated in a recent webinar where he made recommendations on how cannabis businesses can stay tax compliant.
The IRS Commissioner of Small Business/Self-Employment (SB/SE) Examination, De Lon Harris, participated in a PBC webinar on Wednesday, alongside PBC CEO and co-founder, Josh Radbod. There, he discussed the topic of how cannabis businesses can continue to be compliant, despite cannabis’ federal status.
“It’s really our mission at the IRS, not just with marijuana and cannabis industries, but with all taxpayers, to promote voluntary compliance,” Harris said during the webinar. “And that can happen in different ways. When most people think of the IRS, they think of examinations or audits and they think that’s the only way that we interact or try to promote voluntary compliance with taxpayers, but we do our fair share of outreach and education as well. Just like what we’re doing today.”
The PBC Conference is a B2B event for “payments, banking and compliance in the cannabis industry.” Harris was also a keynote speaker at the PBC Conference in 2021, held on September 9-10, 2021.
Harris also spoke of the IRS’ goal of reducing audits for the cannabis industry. “Regarding the cannabis marijuana industry, we developed a strategy that we hope will increase voluntary compliance and identify and address non-compliance when it’s there,” Harris said.
“Our focus is to positively impact filing and paying and reporting compliance on the part of all cannabis businesses to keep audits to a minimum.” On the IRS’ side, Harris noted that they seek to properly educate their examiners so they can conduct a quality examination, that the different sects of the IRS communicate properly with each other, and that they