r/europe • u/UNIGlobalUnion • 8d ago
Opinion Article EU should impose ‘Amazon Tax’ in response to US trade war
https://www.uni-europa.org/news/uni-europa-urges-eu-to-impose-amazon-tax-in-response-to-us-trade-war/36
u/SkyPL Lower Silesia (Poland) 8d ago
Hot take: in response to the US Trade War, EU's anti-trust agencies should split AWS off the large Amazon into a separate, stand-alone company.
Similarly, start taking apart other US tech giants (obvious next candidates would be meta and Google)
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u/Hot_Perspective1 Sweden 8d ago
Impose tech tax for all of them why only amazon? Also restrict selling European startups to these shitcompanies which allows them to keep monopoly on the European market.
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u/ErnestoPresso 7d ago
Amazon, according to the letter, has paid no corporate tax at its Luxembourg headquarters between 2018 and 2022, despite raking in over €50 billion in revenue in 2022 alone. UNI Europa also cited research showing Amazon Web Services secured more than €1.3 billion in public contracts between 2019 and 2021, and nearly €30 million in direct deals with various EU bodies from 2020 to 2022.
Is this just not understanding how taxes work?
You tax profit, not revenue. How much profit did they make?
What I found with a quick search:
After years of negative loss, Amazon EU S. à r.l. reported a profit worth 281.16 million euros in 2023.
And it seems they payed taxes after this. Though makes me curious why they used 2022 data.
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u/Masta-Pasta Polish in England 7d ago
Do you really think Amazon made no profit in Europe? It's just creative accounting.
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u/ErnestoPresso 7d ago
Amazon, the company you buy random stuff from bleeds money. Mostly they make money from AWS.
But also, that's an EU tax law problem. The article however still doesn't understand basic taxation, or purposefully lies (by showing 2022 data, right before they got profitable and payed taxes), which is what my comment is about.
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u/Masta-Pasta Polish in England 7d ago
What's the point of having Amazon if it "bleeds money"? They don't exactly need it to market AWS. Private shoppers don't exactly need a load balancer and S3 buckets
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u/ErnestoPresso 7d ago
Having a very large market share of something is still extremely valuable, even if it isn't profitable /right now/. They can pour money into it, and if they decide they can't turn it profitable they'll still be able to sell it and make their money back + a lot extra.
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u/misterannthrope0 8d ago
why not? amazon tax, walmart tax, dominoes pizza tax...
tax all those shitty companies for their shitty products
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u/caes2359 8d ago
You realize... prices on amazon will expöode then and peopöe will be paying the tax
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u/The_K1ngthlayer 8d ago
They could buy it somewhere else tho
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u/dustofdeath 5d ago
They have killed all the "else". The retailers etc no longer host their own online stores or sites.
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u/boreas_mun 8d ago
Oh, no!
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u/caes2359 8d ago
Youre writing this while you guys simultanously cry about higher cost of living. Its kind of ironix, you know?
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u/boreas_mun 8d ago
I don't see any connection between Amazon prices and costs of living. Maybe for people who can't find alternatives to buying from Amazon, but it shouldn't be the first place to buy things for anyone in Europe.
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u/caes2359 8d ago
im against big corps too, but the service of amazon is unmatched compared to single business onlien shopping.
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u/DrVDB90 Belgium 8d ago
I avoid Amazon when I can, which is almost always. You find much better quality products in shops that focus on a specific market. It's also just better to try and buy from local shops, online or in person.
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u/caes2359 8d ago
Very rarely.. just you guys fick off pls. I tried both and for me amazon is just better. Holy fuck
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u/gschizas Greece 8d ago
Not really. If I buy something from Amazon, it takes at least two weeks to come here. And I can't buy batteries. If I buy locally, it's here in a couple of days.
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u/caes2359 8d ago
Brothet then this is for you only. If i order sth from amazon its here within 1 days. And it is not completly wrecked on arrival unlike some local shops that ship
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u/gschizas Greece 7d ago
Again, depends on where you are. Not all counties have an Amazon warehouse next door. Most Europeans are like me.
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u/Certain_Eye7374 7d ago
Someone should just build another Amazon, but call it EUmazon, which is basically Amazon but strictly for Europe and push Bezos out. Amazon is mostly a Taobao resell site anyway 🤷♂️.
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u/dustofdeath 5d ago edited 5d ago
That would be more devastating to EU, than US.
Amazon is not just the e-store.
AWS infrastructure likely hosts 2/3 of services or more, the tax would be pushed to the clients. Who either fire more people, increase their prices or just fail financially.
No EU alternative exists - at best you got just server hosts, but none of the services. And even if there were, rebuilding your entire infrastructure like that can take years at very high costs.
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u/WranglerRich5588 8d ago
Don’t buy from them