House com­mit­tee calls on DOJ to in­ves­ti­gate com­pa­nies' opi­oid set­tle­ment tax ben­e­fits

Four com­pa­nies that al­leged­ly helped fu­el the opi­oid epi­dem­ic re­cent­ly agreed to pay about $26 bil­lion to set­tle thou­sands of re­lat­ed law­suits, but they al­so may use cer­tain tax ben­e­fits for their set­tle­ment ex­pens­es, House Over­sight Com­mit­tee Chair Car­olyn Mal­oney and col­leagues re­cent­ly wrote to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land and Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Janet Yellen.

Last March, the Over­sight lead­ers ques­tioned the com­pa­nies — Car­di­nal Health, McKesson, Amerisource­Ber­gen, and John­son & John­son — on re­port­ed plans to use a tax pro­vi­sion in the Coro­n­avirus Aid, Re­lief, and Eco­nom­ic Se­cu­ri­ty (CARES) Act to in­crease de­duc­tions for set­tle­ment costs re­lat­ed to their role in fu­el­ing the US opi­oid cri­sis.

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