EU deepens investigation into corporate taxes
BRUSSELS–The European Union said it was seeking fresh information from 15 EU countries on tax deals granted to individual companies, and ordered two governments to comply with its requests, deepening a high-profile tax investigation that has so far embroiled four multinationals including Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
The twin moves show the momentum behind an inquiry into alleged sweetheart tax deals that has sparked five detailed probes and could lead to sizable demands for back-tax payments.
The EU has yet to conclude any of its tax investigations and regulators admitted last month that they would miss a self-imposed June deadline to do so. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has said the investigations are a priority, despite concerns around the role of the commission’s current president, Jean-Claude Juncker, in supporting a number of such deals when he was Luxembourg’s prime minister.
The commission said on Monday that it would ask 15 national governments to provide further details of “a substantial number of individual tax rulings,” after broadening its inquiry in December to all EU countries from an initial group of six.
The commission started investigating the use of tax rulings two years ago, using its sweeping powers to monitor government aid to companies. A year later the regulator opened in-depth probes into tax deals granted to Apple AAPL, -0.23% in Ireland, Starbucks Corp. SBUX, -1.26% in the Netherlands and a division of Fiat SpA in Luxembourg, followed in October by a probe into Amazon’s AMZN, -0.81% tax affairs in Luxembourg. All governments and companies deny that there was any special treatment.
