Brussels challenges defeat in tax case against Amazon | Financial

In 2017, the executive board of the European Union instructed Luxembourg to collect another 250 million euros in tax plus interest from the American online retailer. The General Court of the European Union ruled in May that this intervention was unjustified, but the Commission is now opposing that ruling.

The judgment of the General Court was a sensitive defeat for EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager for Competition. It found that Luxembourg had granted prohibited state aid to Amazon by granting the company certain tax benefits. But the General Court found that there was no evidence that Amazon enjoyed benefits in the Grand Duchy that other companies did not.

In appeal

The European Commission is now appealing to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Judges are said to have made a number of mistakes in the earlier ruling on the matter, Commission spokespersons write. “It remains a top priority to ensure that all companies, large and small, pay their taxes fairly.”

Last year, the European Commission announced that it would appeal the ruling in favor of Ireland in a dispute over the tax remittance of tech company Apple. Vestager had ordered Ireland in 2016 to claim €13 billion plus interest in ‘backward’ taxes from Apple, but here too the General Court ruled that the tax agreements between the EU country and the iPhone maker were permissible.

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