France will have to return approximately 24 million euros to Amazon for the taxes paid in 2019, the administrative court of Cergy-Pontonoise considering this Thursday that certain activities of the online trade giant did not enter the field of digital services tax.
“Through a complaint of December 30, 2021, (Amazon) requested the partial restitution of this tax for the reason that some of the services provided to users had to be excluded from their application field,” the Administrative Court recalls in its judgment issued on Thursday. The requested amount was 23,874,646 euros.
“Amazon Prime” does not enter the Gafa Tax field
Therefore, the court agreed to Amazon considering that the “programs ‘Amazon Prime’ and ‘Sent by Amazon’, not mandatory, of paid access and persecution of their own objectives, are different from the main business of the Amazon group and their digital interface activity,” according to a press release of the Court.
The State will also have to pay the sum of 5,000 euros in legal costs. “We positively appreciate the decision of the court that confirms that the interpretation of the Tax Administration goes far beyond the framework provided by current legislation,” said AFP Amazon, which also states that its “direct contribution to the financing of public services is more than 900 million euros per year.”
The Digital Services Tax, also called the GAFA Tax, is equivalent to a 3% tax on the billing achieved by large Internet companies in France, while mainly based on the United States, where their profits are imposed. Brought around 750 million euros in 2024.
Source: BFM TV
