Drug Companies Want Billions in Tax Deductions from Opioid Lawsuit Settlements

By B.N. Frank

Drug companies weren’t alone in creating “The Opioid Crisis.” According to experts, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) played a significant role in it too. Nevertheless, because of lawsuits, drug companies are supposed to pay settlements. Asking that these settlements be tax write-offs isn’t illegal though it is pretty tacky.

From Washington Post:

Drug companies seek billion-dollar tax deductions from opioid settlement

By Douglas MacMillan and Kevin Schaul

February 12

Four companies that agreed to pay a combined $26 billion to settle claims about their roles in the opioid crisis plan to deduct some of those costs from their taxes and recoup around $1 billion apiece.

In recent months, as details of the blockbuster settlement were still being worked out, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and the “big three” drug distributors — McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health — all updated their financial projections to include large tax benefits stemming from the expected deal, a Washington Post analysis of regulatory filings found.

The Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health said earlier this month it planned to collect a $974 million cash refund because it claimed its opioid-related legal costs as a “net operating loss carryback” — a tax provision Congress included in last year’s coronavirus bailout package as a way to help companies struggling during the pandemic.

The deductions may deepen public anger toward companies that prosecutors say played key roles in a destructive public health crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. In lawsuits filed by dozens of states and local jurisdictions, public officials have argued that the companies, among other corporate defendants, flooded the country with billions of highly addictive pills and ignored signs they were being steered to people who abused them.

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