Booking.com, an online intermediary that allows you to book hotels and rooms by crossing supply and demand, ends up in the sights of the Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office. According to the investigators, between the 2013 and the 2019 the Dutch company failed to pay 350 million VAT to the Italian tax authorities. The estimate is based on the growth recorded by the booking site in the last period. Second Il Sun 24 Hours, the first entries in the register of suspects should arrive shortly.
The investigation was opened last December and does not concern hotels or other commercial accommodation facilities, but only the rentals of houses placed on Booking by private owners. The Prosecutor of Genoa is handling the case because the first irregularities were found on some rentals in Liguria.
Possible missed VAT payments by Booking.com had already been discussed in the past, but the figures circulated so far did not exceed 150 million, because the period considered was limited to the years 2013-2017.
According to the Confindustria newspaper, Federalberghi reported to the Revenue Agency-Collection that Booking issues invoices without Italian VAT, applying the reverse charge (the procedure according to which the person paying the invoice pays the VAT) even to structures that do not have a VAT number and therefore do not pay the bill with the tax authorities. So, in the end, no VAT for the Italian Treasury.
Recently, the Financial Times has also dealt with the Italian investigation, to which Booking replied clarifying to charge a commission on the advertisements of rental houses and to pay VAT on this commission. As for the payment of the rental fee, "the law states that it is the responsibility of our partners to pay VAT to the local government," said a Booking spokesperson. On the contrary, outside the EU it is up to Booking to pay the VAT, so the company collects it from the accommodation facilities in addition to the commission, and then pays it to the tax authorities of the various countries.
