On March 1st, the Jungle Boys downtown Los Angeles dispensary was raided by the LAPD and the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA). The raid was the result of an overdue tax bill to the CDTFA. In California, if a cannabis business is just one day late, it is a 60% penalty with additional fees and interest. During the pandemic, the CDTFA closed down their offices to in person cash payments, which is the only way to pay for cannabis businesses. To top that off there is only one office in Southern California that takes cannabis business tax payments. That office never answers their phones or returns messages. There is one woman assigned to cannabis entities, as I already stated, she does not return phone calls or emails. It is a concerted effort to squeeze out and penalize cannabis businesses for no valid reason, amongst the high burden of over taxation, over regulation.
The Jungle Boys stated on Instagram, ”Let me clear some things up on what happened yesterday. Sitting at TLC and we see Highway Patrol, Police Department under covers about 20 cars pull up first thought they were chasing someone into our building. After having guns pulled on us and being held we asked for them to speak to our attorney showed them proof we had a in appeal showed them emails and all the documents and they refused after being held for an hour we where informed it was the CDTFA and they where taking all of our money over a dispute we had on late charges. When they weren’t accepting payments during covid. We were told to send an email and a fax to get an appeal hearing date we did that and have proof they received it, And our attorney and CPA were also in talks with employees that worked at CDTFA. This was over like 60 k in late fees penalties and interest. On the initial 130k CDTFA bill TLC gave CDTFA over 18 million last year. They came in with money counters and took every dollar in the building. While the cops asked us how much money they could make growing weed. After this ordeal they walked out and said business as usual. You can open back up. So we give these agencies all of our money over taxed and over regulated and this is what we get when we dispute a late fee. I’ve gone through every emotion and when I realized I pay all these people to do this shit to us I just can’t wrap my head around it. We are a legal complaint business, and this is how we get treated? The California Cannabis tax system is broken and we will all be out of business while all these agencies continue to get bigger every day. TLC is back open today and we will see where this all goes.
A day after the raid, March 2nd, CDTFA replied, “Hi Mr. Hodge. Regarding your appeal, notes in our system show that it is currently pending a settlement review. I will forward this information to our collection department for information regarding the billing and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Our office is not aware of reason for the raid of your client but I will see if I can get any information. Thank you.“
