{"id":1295,"date":"2017-10-05T16:14:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T16:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2017-10-05T16:14:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T16:14:41","slug":"european-commission-asks-luxembourg-to-collect-e250-million-from-amazon-in-back-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/european-commission-asks-luxembourg-to-collect-e250-million-from-amazon-in-back-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Asks Luxembourg To Collect \u20ac250m From Amazon In Back Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/amazon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"197\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1298\" \/>The <strong>European Commission<\/strong> has continued its crackdown on major multi-national corporations that have been allegedly manipulating tax laws in the European Union (EU) for a number of years and paying lower taxes. <\/p>\n<p>The Commission ruled on October 4 that <a href=\"http:\/\/europa.eu\/rapid\/press-release_IP-17-3701_en.htm\">Luxembourg must collect \u20ac250 million in back taxes<\/a> from U.S online giant <strong>Amazon<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission launched a detailed investigation into the matter on October 2014 to examine a tax ruling made by Luxembourg in 2003 that granted Amazon massive tax privileges which was extended till 2011. The lower tax rate imposed on Amazon had no justification and the same privilege wasn\u2019t extended to other businesses. <\/p>\n<p>As a result, Luxembourg has to now <strong>recover \u20ac250 million from Amazon<\/strong> based on the ruling issued by <strong>Margrethe Vestager<\/strong>, the commissioner who heads the competition policy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>euronews (in English)<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"position:relative;height:0;padding-bottom:56.25%\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oi48nQW_IaM?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0?ecver=2\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n<p>In a statement, Vestager said <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Luxembourg gave illegal tax benefits to Amazon. As a result, almost three quarters of Amazon&#39;s profits were not taxed. In other words, Amazon was allowed to pay four times less tax than other local companies subject to the same national tax rules. This is illegal under EU State aid rules. Member States cannot give selective tax benefits to multinational groups that are not available to others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Amazon EU which is subject to tax in Luxembourg managed to shift a vast portion of its profits to <strong>Amazon Europe Holding Technologies<\/strong> which is not subject to tax and avoided paying taxes on a significant portion of its profits. The Luxembourg tax ruling allowed Amazon EU to make royalty payments to Amazon Europe Holding Technologies which were inflated according to the Commission\u2019s findings and was not a true reflection of market conditions. The ruling states that Amazon was able to avoid paying taxes on 75 percent of its profits made from EU sales.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/european-commission-diagram-showing-amazon-luxembourg-tax-setup.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1091\" height=\"772\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/european-commission-diagram-showing-amazon-luxembourg-tax-setup.jpg 1091w, https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/european-commission-diagram-showing-amazon-luxembourg-tax-setup-768x543.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1091px) 100vw, 1091px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Tax laws in Luxembourg require the operating company to remit taxes while holding companies are not subject to taxes as they are considered limited partnerships. The holding company is subjected to tax based on the level of its partners and not based on the holding company. For Amazon, the holding company was in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon has claimed that it has not violated any tax laws in Luxembourg and is most likely to file an appeal. The European Commission ruled in 2016 that Ireland had granted Apple similar tax privileges and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/8\/30\/12707666\/apple-ireland-tax-deal-european-commission-decision\">ordered Ireland to recover nearly $15.2 billion in taxes from Apple<\/a>. Ireland hasn\u2019t recovered any money so far and as a  result has been taken to court by the Commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Commission has continued its crackdown on major multi-national corporations that have been allegedly manipulating tax laws in the European Union (EU) for a number of years and paying lower taxes. The Commission ruled on October 4 that Luxembourg must collect \u20ac250 million in back taxes from U.S online giant Amazon. The Commission launched [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>EU Asks Luxembourg To Collect \u20ac250m From Amazon In Back Taxes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/european-commission-asks-luxembourg-to-collect-e250-million-from-amazon-in-back-taxes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"EU Asks Luxembourg To Collect \u20ac250m From Amazon In Back Taxes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The European Commission has continued its crackdown on major multi-national corporations that have been allegedly manipulating tax laws in the European Union (EU) for a number of years and paying lower taxes. The Commission ruled on October 4 that Luxembourg must collect \u20ac250 million in back taxes from U.S online giant Amazon. The Commission launched [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/european-commission-asks-luxembourg-to-collect-e250-million-from-amazon-in-back-taxes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-10-05T16:14:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/amazon.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cameron Bishop\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cameron Bishop\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" 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