ISIS earns $1 million a day from taxation and extortion

A new report from the nonprofit RAND Corporation shows that ISIS' finances are still incredibly strong, despite U.S.-led airstrikes aimed at cutting off the group's revenue.

ISIS collected over $1.2 billion in 2014, RAND's report shows. The breakdown is even more interesting: $600 million of it came from extortion and taxation, $500 million from robbing banks, and only $100 million from oil infrastructure.

That last bit is significant, The New York Times explains, because U.S.-led airstrikes have been targeting refineries to cut off ISIS' revenue sources. That approach seems to have only half worked. While oil profits are down significantly, ISIS now earns more than $1 million every day from extortion and taxation alone, RAND says. It even made $300 million last year from taxing the salaries of Iraqi government workers in ISIS-controlled territory.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

For more on the group's finances, check out the RAND Corporation report over at the Times.