However much tax revenue legalized marijuana might generate, South Dakota doesn’t need it. The state apparently already has so much excess revenue that it’s giving away cash to big businesses:
A major U.S. defense contractor will get a large refund of its South Dakota sales-and-use taxes as a reward for expanding a facility within the state’s borders.
AMTEC Corporation received approval from the South Dakota Board of Economic Development on Wednesday for a tax rebate up to $2,434,648.
…AMTEC is the fifth major business so far in 2026 to receive the board’s approval for a Reinvestment Payment Program rebate.
The businesses which previously received approvals this year — Hydro Extrusion at Yankton, Dakota Ethanol at Wentworth, Agropur at Lake Norden and Smithfield Packages Meats Corporation at Sioux Falls — totaled some $33 million in potential sales and use tax rebates.
The state board in 2025 approved eight businesses for Reinvestment Payment tax rebates totaling more than $11.8 million [Bob Mercer, “2 Businesses Awarded Big Tax Breaks by State Board,” KELO-TV, 2026.07.08].
Note that the Legislature will only give you a break on your property taxes if it can find a way to make up for the lost revenue, by, say, raising the tax on your groceries. But the state will give up $33 million in tax revenue from big corporations with no talk of how to recoup that money within this fiscal year’s budget.
They read the same books that Ken Griffin doesn’t read.