Category: Software
GCOM is one of two Blazer Winners, an overall award given to companies that have gone above and beyond in their journey to grow and make an impact.
A rapidly expanding Columbia technology company is working to establish a foothold in the Maryland cannabis industry.
GCOM is marketing its tax compliance software to governments looking to crack down on tax fraud. The company has already worked with the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission to build a digital medical marijuana registration card, in part to create a more streamlined experience for dispensary customers and to track sales at dispensaries. GCOM's technology can also facilitate cannabis e-commerce by verifying that a person is over 21 years old and tracking how much they buy. The cannabis industry is almost entirely cash-based since most credit cards and banks refuse to work with the industry because it’s still federally illegal.
Cannabis taxes, like sales tax, are relatively voluntary. Businesses tell regulators how much they have sold, but institutions like the Comptroller of Maryland have very few ways to fact-check the information, Chief Strategy Officer Peter Arena said.
There are several indicators that GCOM can use to spot fraud. An industry like cannabis is very seasonal, which offers one way to check for the accuracy of taxes. Other aspects of GCOM's technology look at historical data or data from other companies within an industry to catch outliers who are likely not telling the government the full story about their earnings. For example, a 30,000-square-foot dispensary with 100 employees that claims only to have $100,000 in gross sales could be flagged as suspicious by GCOM.
GCOM added 166 new employees in 2022 alone and made five acquisitions between 2021 and 2019. The company has six offices outside its Maryland headquarters, in Kansas, New York, Florida and Virginia.
To see the rest of the 2023 Fire Awards honorees, click here.
