The European Commission “opened an in-depth investigation” into the 2003 sweetheart tax deal between Luxembourg and Amazon. This is not the tax loophole that lets Amazon sell digital goods across Europe at Luxembourg’s low VAT rate, under the pretense that they are selling the items from that nation (and that loophole goes away in 2015 regardless). Rather, this is a deal that lets Amazon pay almost no corporate tax on their €13.6 billion in Euroeapn sales. In the current structure, the FT reports, Amazon’s Luxembourg operating unit showed minimal profit of €29 million on those sales, though it paid €2.1 […]
