MILAN (Reuters) – Italian prosecutors are investigating two former finance chiefs of Booking.com in relation to allegations of unpaid taxes by the journey web site firm and have requested Dutch authorities to question them, two sources with data of the matter informed Reuters.
Italy’s tax police in June final yr alleged that Booking.com had evaded 153 million euros ($175 million) of worth added tax (VAT) in reference to vacation leases booked by its platform from 2013 to 2019.
Booking.com, primarily based in the Netherlands, works as an middleman between property house owners and company. Private lodging websites which aren’t professionally run typically don’t have any VAT quantity. But the Italian tax authorities consider the web journey company ought to then acquire tax in such instances.
A Booking.com spokesperson mentioned the corporate was cooperating with the Italian inquiry.
“We are persevering with to actively and transparently collaborate with the Italian tax authorities as a part of our dedication to guaranteeing compliance with all native legal guidelines, and look ahead to persevering with the dialogue,” the spokesperson mentioned.
The firm has mentioned that lodge and bed-and-breakfast house owners utilizing its platform have been themselves accountable for amassing and paying the VAT they owed in Italy and different European Union nations.
The Italian tax police have mentioned they consider that failure to levy the tax permits Booking.com, owned by Delaware-based Booking Holdings Inc, to undercut different lodge teams in one of many world’s hottest vacationer markets.
Italy’s tax workplace has backed the findings of the tax police’s preliminary audit into Booking.com and has began a course of which permits the corporate to pay the excellent sum or to contest any allegations of wrongdoing, the sources mentioned.
DATA SOUGHT
Prosecutors in the Italian port metropolis of Genoa final month despatched their colleagues in Rotterdam a European Investigation Order (OIE) asking them to receive information on, amongst different issues, the corporate’s turnover with personal events, the sources mentioned.
Italian magistrates additionally requested their Dutch colleagues to question Olivier Bisserier, chief monetary officer at Booking.com from 2013 to 2019, and Marcela Martin, CFO from 2019 to 2020, each underneath investigation in relation to the tax allegations towards Booking.com, the sources mentioned.
The two former Booking.com executives didn’t reply to Reuters’ emails requesting remark.
In the OIE doc, the Italian magistrates famous that questioning the 2 former CFOs may present readability and presumably enable prosecutors to ask for the investigation into the 2 executives to be dropped.
A primary European Investigation Order despatched by the Italians in August 2018 in relation to Booking.com was rejected by Rotterdam prosecutors in May 2019, whereas a second request with supplementary data from August 2019 has not been answered, the sources mentioned.
The Rotterdam prosecutor’s workplace declined to remark.
Booking.com accounts for 68.4% of lodge gross sales made by the web journey businesses in Italy, a 2021 research of European lodge affiliation HOTREC confirmed.
($1 = 0.8744 euros)
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Editing by Keith Weir and Jane Merriman)
