{"id":47182,"date":"2019-09-10T05:51:02","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T03:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/?p=47182"},"modified":"2019-09-10T05:51:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T03:51:12","slug":"despite-billions-in-sales-amazon-europe-received-e241m-in-tax-credits-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/2019\/09\/despite-billions-in-sales-amazon-europe-received-e241m-in-tax-credits-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite billions in sales, Amazon Europe received \u20ac241m in tax credits last year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amazon Europe was granted \u20ac241m in tax credits last year, despite reporting nearly \u20ac30bn in sales, and even as authorities move to collect more taxes from tech giants. The credits could be deducted from taxes owed on future earnings, according to The Guardian<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, tech companies in Europe, many of which are based in the US, have been widely criticized for not paying their fair share of taxes in nations where they earn billions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based in Luxembourg, Amazon Europe aggregates the company\u2019s sales from every nation in Europe. They reported pretax losses totaling \u20ac493m, despite sales rising 11.6 percent to \u20ac28bn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company attributed the loss to \u20ac7bn in investments, which went toward new offices, fulfillment centers, and services for customers. They also paid \u20ac114.3bn in royalties and licensing agreements, in some cases to affiliated companies, which campaigners say can reduce tax bills in some nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, Amazon paid just \u20ac55m in taxes on revenues of \u20ac24.9bn. The company has already been ordered by the European Commission to repay \u20ac250m in \u201cillegal tax advantages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A company spokesman defended the company\u2019s relatively small tax bill, saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAmazon pays all the taxes required in every country where we operate. Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits have remained low given our heavy investments and the fact that retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Amazon, they\u2019ve invested \u20ac55bn in Europe since 2010, now employing over 95,000 full-time staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, the company has reduced its tax burden through share-based bonus payments to staff, which in 2018, were up a third from the year before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon UK Services, the company\u2019s warehouse and logistics division, owed \u00a314m in corporation taxes for 2018, almost \u00a310m more than the year before. But according to accounts published Monday, the company expects to pay just \u00a31.06m, once \u00a313m of that tax bill is offset by credits stemming from the share-based payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, those credits totaled just \u00a33m, and the company paid \u00a31.7m to UK authorities, suggesting that even as authorities aim to hold Amazon accountable, they\u2019re actually paying even less. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July, France passed a tax<\/a>aimed at tech firms with annual revenues of more than \u20ac750m, if more than \u20ac25m is earned in France. 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, at an event earlier this summer<\/a>:

\u201cI think it\u2019s deeply unfair that high street businesses are paying tax through the nose… whereas the internet giants, the FAANGs\u2014Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google\u2014are paying virtually nothing. We\u2019ve got to find a way of taxing the internet giants on their income, because at the moment it is simply unfair.\u201d

Photo by David M Jones \/ Amazon warehouse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon Europe was granted \u20ac241m in tax credits last year, despite reporting nearly \u20ac30bn in sales, and even as authorities move to collect more taxes from tech giants. The credits could be deducted from taxes owed on future earnings, according to The Guardian. In recent years, tech companies in Europe, many of which are based in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":47183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[255,3819,3283],"class_list":["post-47182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-finance","tag-amazon","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudebaguette.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}