EU Orders Amazon to Pay Nearly $300 Million for ‘Illegal Tax Advantage’

The European Union has ordered Amazon to pay nearly $300 million over an alleged “illegal tax advantage,” according to a report.

According to the European Commission, Amazon, which was ordered to pay $294 million, “received tax advantages between 2006 and 2014 in the country without any ‘valid justification,'” while “in the period investigated, Amazon was shifting its profits from a company that was subject to tax in Luxembourg to another one that wasn’t subject to tax, known as the ‘holding company,'” according to CNBC.

The company that the profits were moved to reportedly “had no employees, no offices and no business activities.” A spokesperson for Amazon reached out to Breitbart, noting the company has “1,500 employees in Luxembourg.”

In a statement, the European Union’s Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, claimed Amazon was able to “pay four times less tax” than other companies.

“Luxembourg gave illegal tax benefits to Amazon. As a result, almost three-quarters of Amazon’s profits were not taxed,” Vestager explained. “In other words, Amazon was allowed to pay four times less tax than other local companies subject to the same national tax rules.”

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