The Spanish group Inditex, which owns the high-street fashion chains Zara, Massimo Duti and Berschka, amongst others, has been accused by the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament of practising aggressive tax optimisation, particularly in the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland.
The Netherlands, which also comes under fire in this process, is accused of having unduly collected its neighbours' tax revenues. In this way, Belgium is calculated to have missed out on €18 million in tax revenue, Germany €25 million, Spain €218 million, Italy €57 million, Austria €6 million and the United Kingdom £22 million.
Of the 363 companies in the group in 2014, 261 were shops. Either these businesses were slightly in deficit or they had a profit margin close to zero, explained French MEP Eva Joly of the Greens. Some hundred Inditex companies were either management or insurance companies. In the case of these companies, the profit margins were as high as 70%.
Between 2011 and 2014, according to the report by the Greens, the three largest Dutch companies returned a net revenue of €3 billion, or 32% of the total net revenue of the group for this period, in a market of 16 million inhabitants.
The explanation provided by the Greens/EFA is that dividends were paid into a Dutch holding company for the use of the brand, at a level of 5% of turnover.
UK Green Molly Scott Cato emphasised the role played by Ireland, which has just 23 shops, but achieved a turnover higher than Italy or Germany. Public country-by-country reporting is the number one tool to tackle this phenomenon of tax shopping, she said; yet Ireland is one of the countries calling for a change to the legal base of this text, to convert it into a taxation dossier with unanimity required (see EUROPE 11684). The group's Irish subsidiaries are mainly involved in financial activities, but this is also where the online sales company is based.
Switzerland is also part of this financial arrangement. The Greens are therefore calling for a serious blacklist of tax havens.
"We'll see how this pans out", said the co-president of the group, Philippe Lamberts of Belgium. The majority political will (at the Council) is to do as little as possible or to do no more than pretend to be doing something, he added. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)