Booking.com charged with past-due tax bill for 350m euros in Italy

Italian prosecutors are accusing hotel booking giant, Booking.com, of not paying the 350 million euros in value-added taxes over the last seven years.

If the charges made by prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Genoa hold up the case, it will be the biggest tax evasion charges of this kind ever in Italy.

The allegation stated that the Booking Holdings subsidiary did not pay the value-added tax on its Italian businesses. The company is mulling an appeal.

The company becomes the latest of a long line of Internet giants in the spotlight of Italian tax authorities. Previous cases include tax allegations against retailer Amazon, computer and smartphone maker Apple, social media giant Facebook, and search and data company Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet.

But the Booking case is different from most of the others because it alleges that the company did not pay sufficient taxes on business clearly generated in Italy: linking travelers with hotels and other travel-related services based in Italy. The challenge comes from determining whether the part of the service Booking provided was conducted in Italy or elsewhere.

In December, when the charges were first made, Booking denied wrongdoing, saying it should only charge taxes on the commission it collects for booking.

Read more here

Join us November 12-15 for the Property Portal Watch Conference Madrid 2019.