The bill removes a previously available tax exemption for warehousing and reselling prescription drugs by repealing RCW 82.04.272 and reenacts and amends RCW 82.04.280 to expressly list "warehousing and reselling drugs for human use pursuant to a prescription" as a business activity subject to the state business and occupation (B&O) tax at a rate equal to 0.5 percent of gross income. The act adds new statutory sections (including findings) and specifies that Sections 2 and 3 take effect January 1, 2027. The measure was requested by the Office of Financial Management. The bill provides definitions used in the amendment, including "cold storage warehouse," "storage warehouse," and "periodical or magazine," and it defines "warehousing and reselling drugs for human use pursuant to a prescription" as buying drugs for human use pursuant to a prescription from a manufacturer or another wholesaler and reselling them to retailers or health care providers by a wholesaler or retailer who is registered with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and licensed by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission. The terms "drug" and "prescription" are referenced to RCW 82.08.0281 but the exact text of those definitions is not included in the extracted facts. This is a tax law change that eliminates an exemption and changes the B&O tax treatment of a specified activity (a substantive classification and rate change), and it repeals and reenacts statutory provisions to accomplish that change. The extracted facts do not include the full text of the referenced definitions in RCW 82.08.0281 or the complete legislative history beyond the cited session law reenactments.

Starting January 1, 2027, wholesalers and retailers who buy prescription drugs for resale and who are DEA-registered and state-licensed will lose a previous tax exemption and instead owe a business-and-occupation tax equal to 0.5 percent of the gross income from that activity. That directly raises the tax bill for those distributors and retailers, likely reducing their profit margins unless they raise prices or cut costs, and the Department of Revenue will be responsible for administering the change. Hospitals, clinics, and other health care purchasers could see higher purchase prices if sellers pass along the new tax, and the state is likely to collect additional revenue as a result. The exact set of drugs and transactions covered depends on definitions found in other statutes that are not included here, so there is some uncertainty about which specific products and situations will be affected and how large the revenue or cost impacts will be.