The Revenue Agency has announced that the American e-commerce giant has signed the assessment with adhesion, thus agreeing to pay the maxi sum of 100 million euros for taxes not paid in the past.
The agreement resolves the tax disputes relating to the 2011-2015 period, into which an investigation conducted by the Guardia di Finanza and the Milan prosecutors had been underway for some time. The amounts refer to both Amazon Eu Sarl and Amazon Italia Services srl.
In April last year, the Guardia di Finanza had ascertained an alleged evasion of around 130 million relating to a turnover of 2,5 billion euros, contesting the stable organization of the company in Italy.
In October ago the company founded by Jeff Bezos had had problems of a similar nature in Luxembourg, and the European Union had established a record fine of 250 million euros to resolve a bitter tax dispute dating back to 2006.
On the occasion of the announcement, the Revenue authorities made it known that it will resume the process, previously suspended following the activated controls, aimed at stipulating preventive agreements with Amazon for the correct taxation in the future of the activities referable to Italy.
Amazon's response was not long in coming: "In May 2015, to ensure that we have the best structure to serve our customers in the future, we set up the Italian branch of Amazon Eu Sarl which records all revenues, expenses, profits and taxes due in Italy for retail sales,” the company said in a statement. “We remain focused on offering a great shopping experience to our customers in Italy, where we have invested over 800 million euros since 2010 and created over 3 jobs”.
This is just one of the many cases involving the Revenue Agency, which in recent weeks has been heavily involved in a strict fiscal control policy focused on the operations of high-tech multinationals in Italy.
In fact, the tax authorities have also reached similar agreements with Google call to pay well 306 million euros to settle the tax dispute over the period 2002-2015, and with Apple who will pay a fine of 318 million euros as the balance of all pending matters with Revenue.
