Comment by pvtmert

6 hours ago

Amazon already has not been paying any sort of income tax to the EU. There was a lawsuit in Belgium but Amazon has won that in late-2024 since they had a separate agreement in/with Luxembourg.

Speaking for EU, all big tech already not paying taxes one way or another, either using Dublin/Ireland (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, ...) and Luxembourg (Amazon & Microsoft as far as I can tell) to avoid such corporate/income taxes. Simply possible because all the earnings go back to the U.S. entity in terms of "IP rights".

The EU doesnt collect income/corporate tax, the individual countries do.

These big corps use holdings in low tax jurisdisctions like Ireland and Luxemburg, funnel all their EU subsidiaries’ revenues there and end up paying 0 tax in the individual EU countries.

This system is actually legal, EU lawmakers should pass laws to prevent this.

  • And let us not forget the millions and billions the global IT corporations pay in the EU in form of social security taxes, income taxes, the jobs they create, and the further millions and billions in the form of purchases from local delivery companies, consultants, DC vendors, office suppliers, taxi companies, delivery companies, food and catering and all the other local EU-based companies who benefit from having these giants walking among us.

> Amazon already has not been paying any sort of income tax to the EU.

That should be expected, because

https://european-union.europa.eu/priorities-and-actions/acti...

> The EU does not have a direct role in collecting taxes or setting tax rates.

> There was a lawsuit in Belgium but Amazon has won that in late-2024 since they had a separate agreement in/with Luxembourg.

Dec 2023.

> Speaking for EU, all big tech already not paying taxes one way or another, either using Dublin/Ireland (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, ...) and Luxembourg (Amazon & Microsoft as far as I can tell) to avoid such corporate/income taxes. Simply possible because all the earnings go back to the U.S. entity in terms of "IP rights".

Ireland (due to pressure from EU) closed this in 2020. The amount of tax collected by Ireland quadrupled. See Figure 5 and 6 in link below.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/10/14/the-...

  • > any sort of income tax to the EU.

    Its clear that OP means "in the EU".

    > Ireland (due to pressure from EU) closed this in 2020. The amount of tax collected by Ireland quadrupled. See Figure 5 and 6 in link below.

    And Ireland fought against this tooth and nail. Yes, a country was fighting to have less income. All out of fear that the companies will leave the little tax heaven. Did they leave? No ...

    > See Figure 5 and 6 in link below.

    Figure 7 is also interesting if we look at the tax income increase and the outbound.