Fisco, Cgia: small businesses pay 21 billion more in taxes than web giants
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June 10, 2021 The booking site Booking.com is accused of having evaded over 150 million VAT in Italy.
This is what the financiers of the First Group of the provincial command of Genoa and Chiavari made known, led by Colonel Ivan Bixio and Captain Michele Iuorio, as part of an investigation into the maxi evasion of the company based in the Netherlands. According to investigators, coordinated by the substitute Giancarlo Vona and by the adjunct Francesco Pinto, Booking would have earned about 700 million euros from 2013 to 2019 on over 800 thousand transactions.
The investigation started in 2018 from a series of tax assessments on Bed & Breakfast managers, in particular in the Eastern Ligurian area.
From the examination of the fiscal documents, declares the Guardia di Finanza, "it emerged that the Dutch company used to issue invoices without VAT by applying the so-called 'reverse charge' mechanism even in cases in which the accommodation facility did not have the relevant item the consequence that the tax was neither declared nor paid in Italy ".
The military consulted the databases and open sources and with the data made available by the multinational and relating to the commissions applied to 896,500 customer positions in Italy, a turnover was reconstructed for an amount of approximately 700 million euros; on this amount, the company should have made the annual VAT return and paid over € 153 million in tax to the tax authorities.
On the other hand, it emerged that the company has not appointed its own tax representative, nor identified itself in Italy and therefore has not submitted the relative declaration "thus achieving total tax evasion, which has not been paid either in Italy or in the Netherlands" .