Brussels:Europe‘s second-top court on Thursday annulled an EU order to Amazon.com Inc. to pay about €250 million ($303.28 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg, part of an EU crackdown against unfair tax deals between multinationals and European Union countries.
The Luxembourg-based General Court said Amazon had not enjoyed a selective advantage in its tax deal with Luxembourg. “The Commission did not prove to the requisite legal standard that there was an undue reduction of the tax burden of a European subsidiary of the Amazon group,” judge said.
The European Commission had in its 2017 ruling said the Grand Duchy spared the US online retailer from paying taxes on almost three-quarters of its profits from EU operations by allowing it to channel profits to a holding company tax-free.
The cases are T-816/17 Luxembourg v Commission & T-318/18 Amazon EU v Commission.
