Tax may have been underpaid for decade by Amazon

US internet giant Amazon may have been underpaying tax for more than 10 years because of a deal it reached with Luxembourg’s authorities, according to the European Commission.

Its suspicions that this amounted to unfair state aid, not available to competitors or other companies, has led the commission’s competition section to launch a full-scale investigation into the arrangement.

Similar investigations are under way into Ireland’s arrangement with Apple and with the Dutch state’s deal with Starbucks. Final decisions are expected in the spring. If found to have breached state aid rules, the companies are likely to be told to pay the unpaid taxes, going back a maximum of 10 years, to the governments concerned.