Patagonia's tax break, explained

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Surf's up with the IRS! Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard recently gave his company and billionaire status away. But how he did so entails a complex tale of trusts, exemptions and a whole lot of taxes.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:03.4	This is the indicator from Plenty of Money.
0:13.1	I'm Adrian Ma.
0:14.1	And I'm Paddy Hirsch.
0:15.4	Last week we saw something that we don't see that often in this country or any country
0:19.2	for that matter.
0:20.2	A billionaire gave all of his money away.
0:23.1	Like all of it.
0:24.1	Well, the vast majority of it anyway.
0:26.4	Who we should say former billionaire anyway, his name is Ivan Schwinard, owner of the
0:31.5	outdoor clothing and equipment retailer Patagonia.
0:35.2	Now it's a private company so we don't know its exact value but it is estimated at $3
0:40.9	billion.
0:42.6	And because it's private that makes, or I guess it made, Ivan a billionaire three times over.
0:49.5	And this is a guy who really hated being called a billionaire.
0:52.3	He's always said that all he ever wanted to do was climb and surf.
0:55.6	And he let people wear what they wanted in the paddy going to your office and he encouraged
0:58.9	them to work flexible hours so that they could go climbing or biking or looking after their
1:03.4	kids or whatever.
1:04.7	Here he is talking with Guy Rouse on the NPR podcast Hi I Built This.
1:08.1	I mean, I wrote a book called Let My People Go Surfing and it's all about we have a policy
1:13.2	that when the surf comes up, you drop work and you go surfing.
	...

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