London- On Wednesday, well-known company Amazon won its appeal against the European Commission. Well, the EU had ordered this tech giant to pay back the 250 million euros in taxes to Luxembourg.
As per the EU’s general court, the commission has failed to prove that any sort of illegal tax advantages was provided to Amazon by Luxembourg in which the U.S. firm has its European subsidiary.
Well, the Brussels-based institution which had mentioned in 2017 that Luxembourg had granted undue tax benefits to Amazon. Notably, the commission mentioned that at that time Amazon was permitted to make payment of four times less tax than the other local companies that are subject to the same national rules. Moreover, Amazon contested the assessment.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson mentioned, “We welcome the Court’s decision, which is in line with our long-standing position that we followed all applicable laws and that Amazon received no special treatment.” The institution can adapt to appeal the court ruling and take the case to the EU’s highest court.
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The latest court ruling is the second one in the space of less than a year, where the result says the commission had not yet proven any tax advantage.
Last July, the EU’s general court mentioned that the EU’s team led by Margrethe Vestager botched to prove that the Irish government had specified a tax advantage to Apple. The commission had ordered Apple to reimburse some 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes in 2016.
The commission has from that time-definite to take this case to the European Court of Justice, while at the same time studying ways on how to sharpen up its toolkit to combat what it elaborates as unfair market competition.
In this context, European lawmakers are presently debating two legislative proposals which may bring about far-reaching changes. Under these proposals, the EU’s intention is to impose therapies that will lead to practical changes, rather than penalizing those that continuously rupture the rules.
