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HOW MUCH DOES IT OWE? $444,373
THE BACKSTORY: Saints Inc. is the holding company behind the Portland-area cannabis endeavors of Jesce Horton and Dave Murray, who are listed in state filings as the company’s principals. Their holdings include the popular cultivator LOWD (“Love Our Weed Daily”).
LOWD, however, is not the Oregon Department of Revenue’s target. Instead, it’s Saints Inc.’s new upmarket marijuana delivery service, OWTLET, which faces a massive tax bill after it failed to file its quarterly tax returns. Horton says the DOR has vastly overestimated the new business’s sales.
Horton, an industry pioneer, left a corporate job to follow his passion cultivating cannabis—and to help others do the same. He’s founder of both the Minority Cannabis Business Association and the NuProject, which partnered with Prosper Portland to distribute $30,000 grants to local Black-owned cannabis businesses.
Saints Inc. has been a widely touted success in recent years. In 2021, Horton told Forbes his company was on track to make nearly $1.5 million in annual profits. The following year, the founders were the only Portland names on Forbes’ list of 42 “pioneers to watch in the green gold rush.”
Still, not all of their plans have panned out. A 23,980-square-foot North Portland warehouse that Horton planned to turn into a dispensary is now up for sale, at an asking price of $4 million.
WHAT DO THEY SAY? DOR’s delinquent taxpayer database online says OWTLET owes more than $400,000 in marijuana taxes, 17% of retail transactions. But the exclusive delivery business has been operating for less than a year, Horton says, and has made only $7,000 in revenue. He says he’s submitting paperwork to the state to prove it.
“I damn near committed suicide because they’re sending me something saying I owe half a million dollars,” Horton says. “It’s that ridiculous.”
When tax returns aren’t filed, the DOR bills for taxes owed based on the “best information available,” an agency spokesman tells WW.
WHAT THE BACK TAXES COULD BUY: Nearly 15 economic justice grants from the NuLeaf Project.