Adevinta Disputes Spanish 'Google Tax' Bill

The Norway-based online marketplace operator Adevinta could be liable to pay €18 million in digital services tax after the Spanish authorities claimed that the company provides services that fall under the remit of the so-called 'Google Tax'.

According to the local publication 20minutos, the classifieds giant has taken issue with the assessment with an unnamed company source saying that the application of the tax in its case was "surrounded by a high level of uncertainty".

The tax is part of a push by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to extract more from tech giants such as Google and Meta which have historically been able to avoid charges thanks to their notoriously convoluted fiscal structures. In Spain, the levy has been in force since 2021 and has so far yielded underwhelming results in its attempts to make big companies pay up.

The €18 million Adevinta may be liable for comes on top of the hefty tax bill the company has already been made to pay in France. Last year the company agreed to pay €33 million as a gesture of good faith after a back-and-forth with authorities.

Adevinta's portfolio includes real estate verticals in Spain (Fotocasa and Habitaclia), Brazil (VivaReal, and Zap joint venture), France (A Vendre A Louer) and Ireland (Daft.ie joint venture) as well as many leading horizontal classifieds platforms (Leboncoin in France and Kleinanzeigen in Germany) and car and job verticals mainly in Europe. The was recently acquired and taken private by Aurelia Bidco, a consortium led by U.S. private equity firms Permira and Blackstone.