In 2004, Hurricane Ivan tore through the Gulf of Mexico. One of the worst disasters wrought by Ivan’s wrath was damage to an offshore oil rig, owned by Louisiana-based company Taylor Energy, which fell over—uncapping the well beneath. Crude oil began to fill the Gulf.
Taylor Energy first lied and said that only a few gallons of oil were leaking every day out of the broken well, while they worked to plug the holes created by Ivan and their rig. It wasn’t until 2008 that Taylor Energy Company admitted that at least 90 gallons of oil had been leaking per day. This admission came along with a $666 million deal with the government to put that money into a trust in order to clean up a four-year-running spill. By 2018, it turned out that not only was the spill not contained, but the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico for the past 14 years was also considerably more than what Taylor pretended it to be—potentially hundreds if not thousands of times more.
To date, it is the longest-running (and potentially the largest) oil spill in U.S. history.
On Thursday, ProPublica published a report about the billionaire owner of Taylor energy Company, Phyllis Taylor. The report highlights how ultra-wealthy Americans and their businesses pay nothing (or next to nothing) in taxes by using tax loopholes and the like. Ms. Taylor, according to the investigation, pulled in about $444 million in personal income between 2005 and 2018 while the Gulf of Mexico was being drowned in her company’s environmental disaster. Want to guess how much the 80-year-old Louisiana billionaire paid in taxes on that money?
If you guessed $1 billion multiplied by zero, you are correct! Ms. Phyllis Taylor has reportedly paid $0 in income tax while pulling in almost half a billion dollars in income between 2004 and 2018. By the way—she most likely didn’t pay any income tax between 2019 and 2021, either.
First off, Phyllis’ husband, Patrick Taylor, died shortly after Hurricane Ivan. While the company was hiding the leak, Phyllis took 95% ownership over the company and used the tax-free inheritance laws to her advantage by over-valuing the company and its assets so that when she sold off the company in 2008 (before even beginning to pretend to start cleaning up the mess her company made), she pulled in a reported $1.2 billion but was able to report “a loss of $211 million.”
You can’t tax a loss. Now, how about that $444 million? Well, when the government made the deal with Taylor Energy to put $666 million in a trust for the cleanup, ProPublica explains:
She’s allowed to legally do this and as you can imagine, using a big pile of money dedicated to cleaning up your dirty deeds to offset your taxes is just what the demon doctor ordered. Since that time, environmental groups, the Coast Guard, and other investigators have shown Taylor Energy’s versions of what is happening 450 feet beneath the surface to be lies. Taylor Energy has continued to sue all parties involved, including the government—asking for the remaining money in the Trust to be released back to Taylor Energy.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s Interior Department worked on getting rid of some of the government oversight put into law after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. ProPublica estimates that Ms. Phyllis Taylor’s “reserve pool of losses exceeded $330 million,” by the end of 2018 meaning that it is very likely she will never have to pay income taxes ever again.
Taylor Energy first lied and said that only a few gallons of oil were leaking every day out of the broken well, while they worked to plug the holes created by Ivan and their rig. It wasn’t until 2008 that Taylor Energy Company admitted that at least 90 gallons of oil had been leaking per day. This admission came along with a $666 million deal with the government to put that money into a trust in order to clean up a four-year-running spill. By 2018, it turned out that not only was the spill not contained, but the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico for the past 14 years was also considerably more than what Taylor pretended it to be—potentially hundreds if not thousands of times more.
To date, it is the longest-running (and potentially the largest) oil spill in U.S. history.
On Thursday, ProPublica published a report about the billionaire owner of Taylor energy Company, Phyllis Taylor. The report highlights how ultra-wealthy Americans and their businesses pay nothing (or next to nothing) in taxes by using tax loopholes and the like. Ms. Taylor, according to the investigation, pulled in about $444 million in personal income between 2005 and 2018 while the Gulf of Mexico was being drowned in her company’s environmental disaster. Want to guess how much the 80-year-old Louisiana billionaire paid in taxes on that money?
If you guessed $1 billion multiplied by zero, you are correct! Ms. Phyllis Taylor has reportedly paid $0 in income tax while pulling in almost half a billion dollars in income between 2004 and 2018. By the way—she most likely didn’t pay any income tax between 2019 and 2021, either.
First off, Phyllis’ husband, Patrick Taylor, died shortly after Hurricane Ivan. While the company was hiding the leak, Phyllis took 95% ownership over the company and used the tax-free inheritance laws to her advantage by over-valuing the company and its assets so that when she sold off the company in 2008 (before even beginning to pretend to start cleaning up the mess her company made), she pulled in a reported $1.2 billion but was able to report “a loss of $211 million.”
You can’t tax a loss. Now, how about that $444 million? Well, when the government made the deal with Taylor Energy to put $666 million in a trust for the cleanup, ProPublica explains:
She’s allowed to legally do this and as you can imagine, using a big pile of money dedicated to cleaning up your dirty deeds to offset your taxes is just what the demon doctor ordered. Since that time, environmental groups, the Coast Guard, and other investigators have shown Taylor Energy’s versions of what is happening 450 feet beneath the surface to be lies. Taylor Energy has continued to sue all parties involved, including the government—asking for the remaining money in the Trust to be released back to Taylor Energy.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s Interior Department worked on getting rid of some of the government oversight put into law after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. ProPublica estimates that Ms. Phyllis Taylor’s “reserve pool of losses exceeded $330 million,” by the end of 2018 meaning that it is very likely she will never have to pay income taxes ever again.