ST. PAUL, Minn. – Attorney General Keith Ellison said major tobacco makers have underpaid Minnesota by $58 million due in a 1998 settlement agreement. Ellison has gone to court to recover the funds. The 1998 settlement required annual payments based on several criteria. These criteria included the amount of the manufacturers’ after-tax profits. Since 2018, Ellison said, Big Tobacco has misrepresented its after-tax profits. The payments were to compensate for decades of knowingly peddling lethal tobacco products. The states of Mississippi and Texas also are going after the tobacco companies with similar legal actions.
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Ellison: “It is particularly galling that, after these tobacco companies received a massive tax cut from President Trump, they turned around and used that windfall to justify underpaying the people of Minnesota. The motion I filed seeks to hold Big Tobacco accountable for the settlement payments they agreed to make by recovering millions of dollars the state was underpaid.”