LRM Deputy Mounir Mahboobi calls for greater transparency in e-commerce companies’ taxes

“Amazon, you owe it to the French to be transparent! “ : Maunir Majjobi, Vice President of LRM, Paris and former Secretary of State in charge of digital, invites e-commerce to a topic « In Search of Amazon’s Hidden Profits, It was released on Friday, April 23rd and referred to in the “Additional Investigation”, which aired on Thursday, April 22nd in France. In short, the electorate asks the US panel to disclose the revenue of its various branches, its profits and the tax paid by companies in France. In the background, Amazon is accused of tax optimization, which is legal as agreed, but the result of reducing its taxes in France.

For its part, Amazon has been providing data on its activity in France since 2019 in response to reviews. The company expects revenue of 2019 5.7 billion in 2019 “Total tax contribution” 420 million in the same financial year. Contacted on Friday, April 23rd, Amazon France mentions that these are “Last Available Items” Say they don’t have much to share further.

But, Mr. As for Mahjobi, there are no details in these data and they are under “Making fun”, As he announced in December 2020 during the parliamentary hearing of Frederick Dowell, General Manager of the Amazon in France. The former secretary of state recalled that global revenue would increase by 38% by 2020 to $ 386 billion (32 321 billion) to be the winner of the Amazon crisis.

“Complex system”

In his note, Mr. Majboobi underlines the first “Complex system” Amazon companies in France: some subsidiaries, for example warehouse logistics network or advertising activities. Others are only branches of companies based in Luxembourg that do not publish their accounts.

After all, the note from Mr. Mahjob describes that some services are directly invoiced by Luxembourg companies: this is the level of commissions and logistics services paid by independent merchants who sell on Amazon.FR. Or digital books, as well as some Kindle or Amazon Music subscriptions (except for Prime, which provides quicker delivery and access to many services).

The deputy suspects that part of the invoice from Luxembourg was not taxed in France. It also begs the question of hosting functionality on the cloud (dematerialized computing), whose French branch is affiliated with Amazon web services EMEA based in its European parent company Luxembourg.

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