Brussels, 04/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Financial Times reported on Friday 4 July that the European Commission has asked Luxembourg for information to decide whether Luxembourg's taxation of Amazon (whose European headquarters are in Luxembourg) complies with EU state aid rules.
“As we have said publicly many times before, the Commission continues to gather information about certain tax practices in several member states, in order to assess the situation from the point of view of EU state aid rules. However we will not make any comment on whether specific companies may or may not be covered by this information-gathering exercise”, said Antoine Colombani, a spokesman for EU Competition Commissioner Joaquim Almunia. He added: “It is in any event entirely premature to speculate on whether new investigations could target this or that specific company in the future. At the moment we have three ongoing investigations which relate to tax rulings concerning Apple in Ireland, Starbucks in the Netherlands and Fiat Finance and Trade in Luxembourg” (see EUROPE 11098). Almunia said that it is extremely important in this time of belt-tightening for big multinationals to pay their fair share of tax. The Commission is investigating “tax rulings” whereby companies are sent indications and legal guarantees from tax offices of how they will be dealt with. The Commission is not challenging the idea of tax rulings as such, but is not happy about some aspects of the three countries' taxation. Seven countries in total have been asked for details about tax rulings (the three above and Belgium, the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Malta).
The Financial Times says the Commission is looking at the tax rulings for Amazon in Luxembourg, but the Commission on Friday refused to comment.
The Commission has opened infringement proceedings against Luxembourg for its lack of cooperation in tax investigations despite two requests for information. Luxembourg has lodged an appeal against the two requests for information. (EL)