Amazon must pay $295 million in back taxes, EU says
BRUSSELS — Amazon has to pay $295 million in back taxes to Luxembourg, the European Union ordered Wednesday, in its latest attempt to tighten the screws on multinationals it says are avoiding taxes through sweetheart deals with individual EU states.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU official in charge of antitrust issues, also took Ireland to court for failing to collect a massive 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) in back taxes from Apple Inc.
She argued that, like in Amazon’s case, the company had profited from a deal with the country that had allowed it to avoid paying most of the taxes the EU felt were due.
The EU has taken aim at such past deals, which member states had used to lure foreign companies in search of a place to establish their EU headquarters. The practice led to EU states competing with each other and multinationals playing them off one another.