Contact: Seth Nelson
This Tax Day, as families nationwide filed their returns, a new report from the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, highlighted in POLITICO Pro, delivered a striking contrast. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s former company, Liberty Energy, made $193 million in profit last year and paid zero federal corporate income taxes—and actually received more than $10 million back from the IRS. This is the same administration that promised its “One Big Beautiful Bill” would deliver real relief to working Americans. Those families filing today aren’t seeing it.
What they are seeing: gas prices averaging $4.10 per gallon, nearly a dollar higher than last year, driven by Trump’s reckless illegal war with Iran, which is generating windfall profits for the very oil and gas companies that bankrolled his campaign. And Trump’s economic law didn’t just hand Big Oil tens of billions in new tax giveaways; it also killed the clean energy investments that were adding new, cheap, faster-to-build power to the grid—the very power that could have insulated families from the volatile fossil fuel markets now draining their wallets. Trump’s energy agenda has always had a clear set of winners and losers. Today, on Tax Day, we can see exactly who is who.
ICYMI: POLITICO Pro: Oil company founded by energy secretary paid no US taxes last year
By: Mike Soraghan
April 15, 2026
- The company founded and formerly run by Energy Secretary Chris Wright paid no federal corporate income taxes last year, according to its regulatory filings, and actually got more than $10 million back from the IRS.
- Liberty Energy, the oil field services company Wright founded in 2011 but left last year to join the Trump administration, was among several energy companies included in a report issued Tuesday by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy naming 88 companies that together made more than $105 billion before taxes last year but paid no federal corporate income taxes.
- Liberty recorded net income before taxes of $193 million last year but received more than $10 million back in tax benefits, according to its latest annual financial disclosure. The company paid $33 million in federal taxes for the 2024 tax year after making a net income of $403 million before taxes.
- No one has accused Liberty and the other companies of having done anything illegal. But Liberty and other companies having no tax liabilities while posting millions of dollars in profit comes as many Americans who filed their own tax returns have so far not reaped benefits as big as Republicans in Congress and the White House promised when they passed the One Beautiful Bill Act.
- Voters are also coping with rising prices for gasoline and other goods because of the White House’s war with Iran. The price of a gallon of regular gasoline cost an average of $4.10 on Wednesday, according to AAA, nearly a dollar higher than the price last year.
- ITEP says the report shows that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are reducing the tax burden of big companies with last year’s megabill and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
- “What we’re seeing in this most recent year is corporate tax avoidance on steroids,” said Matt Gardner, an ITEP senior fellow and author of the report. “It’s no secret that large, profitable American corporations have avoided paying full freight for decades, but that trend has been turbocharged by the Trump administration’s 2017 and 2025 corporate tax cuts.”
- The Trump administration has touted its efforts to lower federal taxes, and today issued a statement proclaiming that “Americans Are Keeping More of What They Earn.” But critics have said both of Trump’s major tax packages direct the biggest breaks to large companies and wealthy taxpayers, with fewer benefits for those with lower incomes.
For more on how Trump’s energy agenda is driving up costs for American families, see Evergreen’s most recent “Trump’s Energy Price Hike” memo.
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