Corporate Entity Selection & Creation
The highest-leverage decision a cannabis business makes, usually made before anyone qualified is in the room.
This is the highest-leverage decision a cannabis business makes, and it is usually made before anyone qualified is in the room.
Your entity structure determines how much of your operation falls inside 280E's reach, how income reaches you personally, and what your options are when you eventually sell.
What's Included
Why This Differs In Cannabis
In most industries, entity choice is a moderate tax optimization. In cannabis it can be the difference between a viable business and an unviable one.
The specific question is which activities fall inside the plant-touching license and which can legitimately sit outside it. Real estate, management services, and intellectual property held in separate entities may not be subject to 280E — but only if the separation is genuine, the transactions between entities are at arm's length, and the whole thing is documented well enough to withstand scrutiny.
We will tell you plainly where that line is. Structures built purely for tax appearance, without operational substance, do not survive examination, and we will not build one.
Structures built for tax appearance without operational substance do not survive examination.
Why MCA
We have served licensed cannabis operators since 2015 — one of the first firms in the country to build a practice around it — and we have worked with more than 100 operators across 30+ states. Cannabis is all we do, and all we have ever done.
Frequently Asked
We are already formed. Is it too late?
Often not. Restructuring is possible, though it is easier before operations begin.
Is multi-entity structuring aggressive?
It is legitimate when the separation is real. It is a problem when it is fiction. We will be direct about which yours is.
How much difference does it make?
Frequently the largest single tax variable in the business.