Italian Prosecutors Seek Trial For Amazon, Four Execs Over Alleged $1.4 Billion Tax Evasion (reuters.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Milan prosecutors have requested trial for Amazon's European unit and four of its managers over alleged tax evasion worth around $1.38 billion, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. The move is unprecedented for a case of this kind in Italy, as Amazon agreed in December to pay 527 million euros, including interest, to Italy's Revenue Agency to settle the tax dispute. In all previous cases involving other international groups, once a settlement was reached and payment made, prosecutors closed related criminal investigations, either through plea deals or by dropping the cases. This time, however, Milan prosecutors did not share the tax authority's approach and decided to press ahead with their probe, leading to a request that the suspects be sent to trial. After December's tax settlement, Amazon said it would "forcefully defend its position on the potential ungrounded criminal case." It added: "Unpredictable regulatory environments, disproportionate penalties, and protracted legal proceedings are increasingly affecting Italy's attractiveness as an investment destination."
Under what's described as a "VAT-avoidance algorithm," prosecutors accuse Amazon and four managers of enabling large-scale VAT evasion on goods sold in Italy between 2019 and 2021, allowing tens of thousands of non-EU marketplace sellers to sell goods in the country without clearly disclosing their identities. They allege that this helped the sellers avoid paying value-added tax. "Under Italian law, an intermediary offering goods for sale in Italy is jointly responsible for unpaid VAT by non-EU sellers operating through its platform," notes Reuters.
Under what's described as a "VAT-avoidance algorithm," prosecutors accuse Amazon and four managers of enabling large-scale VAT evasion on goods sold in Italy between 2019 and 2021, allowing tens of thousands of non-EU marketplace sellers to sell goods in the country without clearly disclosing their identities. They allege that this helped the sellers avoid paying value-added tax. "Under Italian law, an intermediary offering goods for sale in Italy is jointly responsible for unpaid VAT by non-EU sellers operating through its platform," notes Reuters.
Investment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever the merits of this case this has nothing to do with investment and Amazons comment sounds like an amateurish veiled threat. Though if all they have to offer is minimum wage warehouse jobs and water and electricity sucking data centres I doubt anyone will care.
The law is the law whatever they think of it. If you want to operate in a country obey it or get out and just because the monetary side may have been settled the criminal side has not. Tax evasion is a crime in all countries, end of.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Under Italian law, an intermediary offering goods for sale in Italy is jointly responsible for unpaid VAT by non-EU sellers operating through its platform," notes Reuters
Amazon can't bother to keep track of all the shady third party sellers or even went out of their way to obfuscate their locations. Will Bezos have to install less gold on his multi hundred million dollar yacht? #pray4amazon
Re: (Score:2)
Under Italian law, an intermediary offering goods for sale in Italy is jointly responsible for unpaid VAT by non-EU sellers operating through its platform," notes Reuters
Amazon can't bother to keep track of all the shady third party sellers or even went out of their way to obfuscate their locations. Will Bezos have to install less gold on his multi hundred million dollar yacht? #pray4amazon
I love you.
I don't think threats will work (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming we don't turn away from the path we're on then I would expect Europe to start doing things like shutting down American financial institutions and software companies in their country because it becomes a national security risk. As in we are going to end up being viewed as a hostile Nation on par with China or maybe even Russia...
The midterms might help a little but probably not enough. It's going to come down to what happens in 2028 and what the American voters do.
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The damage is done, the USA PROVED it was a real threat to other countries sovereignty, culture, freedom, democracy, finances.
I hope that the EU excels and becomes an alternative to US media/businesses for the rest of the world to use too.
Trump will be seen as the president who willed the USA..... and the people willingly allowed him to do it. There were various off ramps the US could have taken (impeachment
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But it's going to take decades to repair the damage even if we get lucky and stop electing Republicans for a while.
Honestly at a minimum we need the voters to stop faffing about with right-wing lunatics for at least 16 years maybe longer. E. G. We need two full presiden
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Modernising much of the existing generating system will help too.
This oil shock will boost public transport, where I live we already have electric buses.
Road will give way to rail for spending, a thought that terrifies oil industry execs.
If we get rid of Comalco our aluminium smelter we would have another 20% of power for our national grid to use, this buys us time to make other structural changes (more wind/solar, upgraded hydro and thermal, increased
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They have been doing with for over 100 years and we are tired of it We DON'T want to be Americanised , our languages, culture, art, music food, etc etc etc are all different and all of equal value to each other, no one is better than any others.
US laws and jurisdiction end at the US boarder, not where ever you think you can make a country submit and make US corporations rich. The USA is in effect the school bully taking other peoples lunch money.
And se
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2028 is way too late. That closing the door after the horses have bolted.
it was already "the end of history" in the 90s .. until it wasn't. And while I seriously dislike some of what Trump is doing , even more of HOW, and yet more of what he says and tweets...
so far we're still in NATO, still supporting Ukraine and the Fed and the Courts are holding just fine.
and even on DHS stuff it's better now than it was a month or two ago.
Also, the US is to the EU somewhat like China is to the US.... the economic dependencies aren't mostly of strategic choice, just economic reality. H
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If you had a functional government and law system trump would have been behind bars, and Epstein would have been life behind bars the first time, not released so he could continue.
Trump is stealing tax payers dollars as fast as he can, so are his family. Insider trading is rife in your representatives at all levels.
The Supreme Court is just as corrupt, as are many of the judges and other Presidential appointments.
Things are NOT going to go back to normal once Trump goes.
"Once bitten
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You're rolling a LOT of stuff in there.
The US has its problems, but they're generally long term and not primarily Trump related. Things like dealing with a post-industrial economy and economic inequality that's grown in the past few decades.
and then whatever AI's going to do to us (and the world).
Then there was COVID... and there still IS the Russia war...
And some things are actually going well...
e.g. it's looking like violent crime in 2025 finally returned to pre BLM levels.
and the stock market is still
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Tells me all I need to know about you...
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if you prefer, call it the "retreat to donut shops" or "defund the police" era, but it is clear as day in the statistics.
https://counciloncj.org/whats-... [counciloncj.org]
(of course "opinions vary" as to the cause... as people argue about which variables are the REAL drivers and which social model to adopt, etc)
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I think that Europe is seriously considering gradually removing American companies from its shores. America has become a extremely unreliable partner to say the least and that Greenland and nonsense was mind-bogglingly insane.
Assuming we don't turn away from the path we're on then I would expect Europe to start doing things like shutting down American financial institutions and software companies in their country because it becomes a national security risk. As in we are going to end up being viewed as a hostile Nation on par with China or maybe even Russia...
The midterms might help a little but probably not enough. It's going to come down to what happens in 2028 and what the American voters do.
I think the end game is not to isolate Europe from America, rather to ring fence American companies in Europe.
It's a particularly virulent delusion amongst many Americans that Europe is anti-business, nothing could be further from the truth as even the most socialist of European nations are very, very much free market capitalists... However we're stopping short of crony capitalism where business get to run the government and rightly so as the US is showing us how bad that's going.
Now Europe is happy f
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Whatever the merits of this case this has nothing to do with investment and Amazons comment sounds like an amateurish veiled threat.
I have a better threat. Go ahead: Just cut off a population of 60 million paying customers. I dare you.
Sincerely
Shareholders.
Any Italian case is sus a priori (Score:3)
I'm no expert but started looking into it was back during the Amanda Knox saga.
A lot of things there seen very anachronistic compared to, say, the US. It's like about Good and Evil versus evidence , logic and rules.
Ok, prosecutors in the US , and media coverage, are as bad or worse many places, but the courts here hold them to much higher standards usually so it keeps them in check.
It's just all very political compared to other Western courts...
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it's about... spreading the cheddar around. Bribes are due at every level in Italy. You can't just pay off the top level (as you can in most countries), you have to pay off all of the prosecutors at every level to get them to each agree to drop the case. Everyone has their hand out, not just the government.
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Right now Italy is a strange place. I'm very critical of every braindead response of "the EU is just punishing American companies because they are jealous" but this particular case seems particularly odd (for the block, but not necessarily for recent Italy).
Good (Score:2)
Sorry (Score:2)
I read that as Italian Prosciutto.
I missed lunch today.