Marathon Petroleum Owes Illinois Fuel Taxes on Cash Transfers

Marathon Petroleum Co. must pay fuel taxes in Illinois’s Cook County on transactions that involved paying cash to settle a fuel delivery contract, but doesn’t owe penalties, an Illinois appeals court ruled.

The company disputed assessments from the Cook County Department of Revenue for nearly $15 million in taxes, interest, and penalties. Friday’s decision from the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District focused on Marathon’s “book-out transactions,” which involved paying cash instead of transferring fuel in order to settle a contract to deliver fuel on a specific date.

Marathon argued that its book-out transactions weren’t taxable fuel ...