Amazon Tax Structure Like Something Out of a Bond Movie, EU Says

Amazon's efforts to minimize its taxes in the European Union were given a code-name evocative of a spy thriller with British agent 007, according to an EU lawyer, who claimed the arrangements broke the bloc's state-aid rules. From a report: "Project Goldcrest -- it sounds like the title of a James Bond movie, but it is not," it's the name "Amazon gave to a complex tax construction by which it fundamentally reorganized its global business," European Commission attorney Paul-John Loewenthal told a hearing at the EU's top court on Thursday. "In 2006, that project had one purpose to ensure that Amazon would avoid paying tax on its European profits." Under that plan, "Luxembourg provided a measure to Amazon by which Amazon could exempt the vast majority of its European profit from taxation in return for investments in Luxembourg, thus affecting intra EU trade and distorting competition," he said. "That is the very definition of fiscal state aid." The EU's executive arm is appealing a painful defeat inflicted by a lower court, which overturned a decision to force the ecommerce firm to pay back $265 million of tax breaks regulators deemed to be an unfair subsidy.

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