EU: Corporate tax probe deepened

The European Union said it was seeking fresh information from 15 EU countries on tax deals granted to individual companies, and ordered two recalcitrant governments to comply with its requests, deepening a high-profile tax investigation that has so far embroiled four multinationals including Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

The twin moves show the momentum behind an inquiry into alleged sweetheart tax deals that has sparked five detailed probes and could lead to sizable demands for back-tax payments.

But the EU has yet to conclude any of its tax investigations and regulators admitted last month that they would miss a self-imposed June deadline to do so. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, has said the investigations are a priority, despite concerns around the role of the commission’s current president Jean-Claude Juncker in supporting a number of such deals when he was Luxembourg’s Prime Minister.

The commission said on Monday it would ask 15 national governments to provide further details of “a substantial number of individual tax rulings,” after broadening its inquiry in December to all EU countries from an initial group of six.

Full content: The Financial Times

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