The European Commission (the "Commission") has closed three in-depth State aid investigations into transfer pricing tax rulings granted by Luxembourg to Fiat and Amazon, and by the Netherlands to Starbucks. Following judgments by the EU Courts, the Commission found that the tax rulings did not grant the companies selective advantages.
As a reminder, in 2015 and 2017, the Commission found that Luxembourg granted selective tax advantages to Fiat and Amazon, and the Netherlands to Starbucks, in breach of EU State aid rules. In each case, the Commission found that a tax ruling issued by the respective national tax authority artificially lowered the tax paid by each company and therefore granted them a selective advantage over other companies. The Commission's original decisions in all three cases were ultimately annulled by the EU Courts and therefore the respective in-depth investigations remained open until today.
For more background on this topic, please refer to our previous newsletters dated 14 December 2023 and 22 December 2022.
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