Yellen: bank access for cannabis firms would aid U.S. tax collections

(Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that she agreed that allowing state-legal cash-only cannabis businesses to access the U.S. banking system would allow the Internal Revenue Service to improve collection of taxes.

Representative Ed Perlmutter of Colorado asked Yellen during a U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing whether allowing cannabis businesses to access the banking system -- now prohibited by federal law -- to conduct transactions would make the IRS' job easier in collecting tens of millions of taxes that have gone unpaid from such firms.

"Yes, of course it would," Yellen replied.

(Reporting by David Lawder)