Amazon has attracted the eyes of the European Commission officials concerned about tax.
Competition commission officials in Brussels have asked Luxembourg to provide documents on Amazon’s company tax compliance.
Amazon bases its European business in Luxembourg. Apparently the company struck a tax deal with the Luxembourg government. Now the EU is seeking more information on that arrangement.
A number of multinational companies are coming under increased scrutiny in Brussels over their tax affairs.
Last month formal investigations were launched by the EC into arrangements made with tax officials in Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg with Apple, Starbucks and Fiat.
The probes will focus on the way authorities in these three countries apply their tax laws to the global giants' transfer pricing arrangements as they funnelled profits through networks of subsidiaries to avoid higher rates of corporation tax. These could breach EU state aid regulations.
“Under the EU’s state aid rules, national authorities cannot take measures allowing certain companies to pay less tax than they should if the tax rules of the member state were applied in a fair and non-discriminatory way”, Joaquin Almunia, the vice-president of the EC, said last month.
