Nearly 2,000 people and corporations owe the state of Oregon and state transit agencies more than $330 million in delinquent taxes, according to data recently released by the Oregon Department of Revenue. The list includes taxpayers who owe more than $50,000 apiece. Unfortunately, the list isn’t linkable (you have to go to the Department of Revenue web site, scroll down to “Tools,” and click on “Delinquent Taxpayer List”), it isn’t sortable, and you can’t view more than 5 percent of the list at one time.
American Patriot Brands, doing business near Medford under the name of Urban Pharms, owes Oregon more than $27 million in corporate income taxes.
To remedy these problems, I’ve copied and pasted the entire list into a single Excel spreadsheet. The links from the spreadsheet to “detailed information” on individual taxpayers don’t work, but if you want more information, the spreadsheet lists the order in which the taxpayers are listed. Divide by 100 and add 1 to get the page on which they are listed on the original list (for example, taxpayer 405 is on the 5th of 20 pages).
The biggest delinquent, owing more than $27 million, is American Patriot Brands, which is a “vertically integrated cannabis agriculture company” that is also in trouble with the SEC for allegedly defrauding investors. The second-biggest delinquent, owing more than $19 million, is Zadeh Kicks, a defunct seller of collectable sneakers that was indicted last year on charges of wire and bank fraud.
Number three is George Mattia, a Californian who sells marijuana under several business names in Oregon. He owes more than $4 million. Number four, Troy Duzan, is yet another marijuana dealer located in Salem. For those out-of-staters who might be surprised that the innocent task of growing and selling marijuana might be associated with so much tax delinquency, it is worth noting that Oregon’s Secretary of State was recently forced to resign due to her accepting $10,000 a month from a cannabis company that her office was supposed to regulate. That company is behind on its federal taxes, but I couldn’t find it or its principals on the Oregon list.
In any case, that brings us to number five, Mark Hemstreet, the owner of Shiloh Inns, who owes nearly $3.6 million. I’ve never met Hemstreet but appreciated his past support of free-market causes (not including anything I’ve done). I once held a conference at one of his hotels and found it to be very reasonably priced for the service we got. I’m sorry to see him on this list and hope it is due to the pandemic-related disruptions to his industry and that he is able to fix the problems soon.
In any case, the point here is not so much to point fingers at delinquents but to note how much of the delinquent taxes are owed to TriMet, Portland’s transit agency, and to a statewide transit tax that the legislature created in 2021. Without getting detailed information from each of 1,956 taxpayers on the list, one-by-one, I can’t get completely accurate data, but 5 to 10 percent of the delinquent taxes owed by many taxpayers are to transit agencies.
If so, that’s about $16 million to $33 million, which is a lot for an individual but not much compared to the budgets for those transit agencies. TriMet’s annual operating budget is more than half a billion dollars a year, while other Oregon transit agencies total to about $200 million a year.
I’d like to think that some of those delinquents are actually protesting against paying a tax to support an obsolete industry whose services hardly anyone uses, but for most of them, they are simply behind on paying all income or payroll taxes and the transit tax is just one of those taxes. For example, a Portland company, Munitor Construction, owes nearly $1.4 million, mostly by failing to pay the state taxes withheld from employee pay. Just over 5 percent of this was supposed to go to TriMet and other transit agencies.
Oregon budgets two years at a time, but its most recent budget shows that it collects about $12.7 billion a year in income taxes. Payroll taxes earned Oregon transit agencies $477 million in 201, meaning about 3.6 percent of all Oregon state income/payroll taxes go for transit systems used for commuting by just 1.7 percent of workers and that carried just 0.3 percent of passenger-miles in the state in 2021. This is just one more example of how the transit industry has ingratiated itself to politicians for providing inadequate transit services to a diminishing customer base.
I’m no expert on Weed….but shit is beyond governments capacity to have a safe alternative.
cannabis agriculture company? Pot grower.
Here’s the kicker
Recreational users Know where and whom to get their stuff. As such even with a card, users basically “have a guy” as their supplier and grow it. NO taxes, no fees. and trustworthy enough not to lace it with oregano or fentanyl..
That’s why weed growers once thought to rake in billions, in tax revenue fizzled. State cannabis tax rates range from 6 to 37 Percent. “My nigga grows it in basement costs ME nothing”
Add to it, effects marijuana consumption, lethargy, lost time, ill focus, lost wages.
They say weed isn’t addictive, but back 90s people still went to prison, being in jail surrounded by men size of linebackers raping you nightly was insufficient deterrent to make you stop smoking maybe it is addictive…..