Brussels (awp / sda / afp) – Luxembourg has the US Internet giant Amazon illegal tax benefits granted in the opinion of the European Commission. In practice, a mandatory tax information if it were illegal “state aid”.
This was written by the Commission in a letter to the Luxembourg authorities, which was published on Friday in Brussels. The European Commission opened a detailed investigation of the Luxembourg tax rebates for Online Group in October and now published details.
Amazon has its European headquarters in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Specifically, it is a so-called tax preliminary decision of the Luxembourg authorities for the subsidiary Amazon EU S.à.rl in 2003, which still applies today.
The Luxembourg tax authorities would have needed only eleven working days for approval of the tax agreement in 2003, the Commission criticized. The agreement applies unchanged since 2003, which is much longer than the Convention in other EU countries and despite the fact that the sales of Amazon had since increased almost 15-fold.
Luxembourg have the online retailers apparently granted unjustified benefits, it was said in the letter from the European Commission, which dates back to the 7th October and was signed by the then EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia 23-page.
GOVERNMENTS IN SIGHT
Since the beginning of November, the new European Commission under President Jean-Claude Juncker has been in office. Juncker had since the 90s to 2013 head of government and finance ministers in Luxembourg at the same time. He looked at recently suspended due to numerous control arrangements of his country with large international corporations harsh criticism from the EU Parliament, will be decided in the beginning of February, a committee of inquiry on the subject.
begins in the new EU Commission Almunias Official successor Margrethe Vestager the investigation into the tax deal. The Commission also determines the tax practices of Starbucks in the Netherlands and managed competition driving a taxation of US computer manufacturer Apple in Ireland and for the treatment of a financial subsidiary of the Italian automaker Fiat in Luxembourg.
Taking advantage of favorable tax legislation itself is not prohibited. Therefore, not the company, but the governments of Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands from Brussels to be targeted. Lever of European competition law.
This principle prohibits that the state given business engages under the arms and not others. The Brussels competition guardians must provide evidence that firms were asked by the national authorities actually better than other reason. This makes the test very expensive.
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