IRS puts 280E tax guidance for cannabis companies on back burner

Hoped-for guidance for cannabis companies affected by Section 280E of the federal tax code won’t be published anytime soon, an IRS attorney said recently.

According to Bloomberg Tax, the federal agency is more focused on coronavirus-relief issues and guidance related to the 2017 tax reforms pushed through Congress by Republicans and signed into law by former President Donald Trump, IRS attorney Evan Hewitt said during an online conference hosted by the American Bar Association’s Tax Section.

For instance, the attorney said, 280E guidance wasn’t included in the list of IRS priorities released last November.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the IRS will be changing course with regard to 280E and marijuana industry audits.

“Certainly we’re aware of the ever-increasing importance of Section 280E, as time goes on,” the IRS’ Hewitt said during the presentation, Bloomberg reported.

The attorney also indicated that “other businesses” aside from plant-touching cannabis companies could also be subject to 280E.

The news follows 280E guidance the IRS published in September as well as a federal watchdog report last April that found the IRS hadn’t done enough to educate the legal marijuana industry on its federal tax obligations.