News has come that Amazon has won its court fight against the EU over allegations that its company had received €250m of unlawful tax benefits from Luxembourg. This general court ruling overturns that made in 2017 that has resulted in Amazon being ordered to pay €250m in back taxes to Luxembourg. At this time Margrethe Vestager, European competition commissioner had said: “Luxembourg gave illegal tax benefits to Amazon. As a result, almost three-quarters of Amazon’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 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.”
The Judge commented: “The commission did not prove to the requisite legal standard that there was an undue reduction of the tax burden of a European subsidiary of the Amazon group.”
Amazon paid no corporation tax in Luxembourg last year despite having used the country for pooling the €44bn in sales revenues it generated from consumers across European countries including the UK.
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