ST. PAUL – America’s major tobacco companies have been ordered by a court to pay more than $58 million to the State of Minnesota after Attorney General Keith Ellison accused them of underpayments.
Minnesota reached a $6.5 billion settlement with the largest tobacco manufacturers in 1998, which restricted the manufacturers’ marketing of tobacco products and required annual payments to the state based on the manufacturers’ after-tax profits in a given year.
However, Ellison filed a motion in July to enforce the settlement against the manufacturers after claiming the companies were wrongly using a 2018 federal corporate tax rate change to reduce their settlement payments.
A Ramsey County judge confirmed that the Attorney General’s Office’s reading of the settlement was correct and that tobacco manufacturers Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds had underpaid Minnesota. The AG Office says the combined underpayments are roughly $58.2 million, plus interest.
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