What a deal for Italy's internet smarts. The current laws allow it but the numbers speak for themselves: for the giants of the web, Italy is a tax haven. Google, Apple, Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Twitter they make great profits in Italy but they prefer to pay taxes elsewhere, mainly in Luxembourg or Ireland where the taxman is more lenient.
According to a reconstruction of "La Repubblica", in 2014 the six biggest Internet giants have paid to the Italian taxman only crumbs: 9 million euros in all.
Google, which has a turnover of around 2 billion euros in Italy, paid the Italian tax authorities only 2,1 million. Facebook paid 305 euros to the Treasury. Apple is the one that, goodness, paid the most: 4,2 million. Amazon, which collected 54 million in revenues in Italy, paid only 1,8 million to the tax authorities. Twitter, which made revenues of 1,1 million, paid 0,04 million. e-Bay, which has collected only 100 thousand euros in our country, has not paid anything.
It is not the first time that the issue of a substantial, albeit legal, tax avoidance by Internet giants but now the story is taking another turn that threatens to reserve bitter surprises for the crafty of the web. The European Union has opened an investigation into the relationship between the web giants and the Italian tax authorities and various prosecutors and the Revenue Agency are also working on this.
Recently, the Guardia di Finanza and the prosecutors of Milan accused Google of having evaded a taxable amount of 800 million over five years and a similar sum was contested against Apple, while Amazon is negotiating with the Italian authorities. For the crafty of the web, the future of the taxman won't be as sweet as it has been so far.
