At what point is the inquiry on Booking, accused of evasion
Booking, the hotel booking giant, is accused of having evaded over 150 million VAT in Italy. Soon the Genoese magistrates will go to the Netherlands for the investigation on tax evasion
Step forward in the investigation into the maxi tax evasion attributed to Booking, the Dutch giant of online tourist reservations.
According to the survey by the financiers of the first group of the provincial command of Genoa and Chiavari that emerged in June 2021, Booking.com would have earned about 700 million euros from 2013 to 2019 on over 800 thousand transactions, compared to which it would not have paid the 'value added tax.
But from that moment the story between the Genoese judiciary and the Rotterdam counterpart has run aground. But now a turning point is expected in the autumn.
"On 24 October, the prosecutor in charge of the tax evasion file, Giancarlo Vona, together with the acting chief prosecutor Francesco Pinto, will fly to The Hague to meet their Dutch colleagues, where the most famous holiday rental portal in the world has its registered office. ” Reports Repubblica Genova edition.
All the details.
THE INQUIRY STARTED FROM 2018 ON BOOKING
The inquiry on Booking started in 2018 from a series of tax assessments on Bed & Breakfast managers, in particular in the Eastern Ligurian area.
THE REVERSE CHARGE ACCUSATION
From the examination of the tax documents, "it emerged that the Dutch company used to issue invoices without VAT by applying the 'reverse charge' mechanism even in cases in which the accommodation facility was devoid of the relevant item, with the consequence that the tax does not it was declared or paid in Italy ”declared the Guardia di Finanza.
As Repubblica explains, “when a bed is booked by a user in a structure with a VAT number on Booking – generally hotels, farmhouses, etc., the value added tax is paid directly by that structure. But when the deal occurs between two private individuals, according to Italian law it must be the intermediary who acts as a withholding agent (hence the reverse charge) and transfers the money owed to the state coffers. Which, according to the Prosecutor's Office, never happened between 2013 and 2019. "
TOTAL EVASION OF VAT
The military consulted the databases and open sources and with the data made available by the multinational and relating to the commissions applied to 896,500 customer positions in Italy, a turnover was reconstructed for an amount of approximately 700 million euros. On this amount, the company would have had to proceed with the annual VAT return and pay over 153 million euros in tax to the tax authorities.
Instead, it emerged that Booking.com did not appoint its own tax representative, nor did it identify itself in Italy. Therefore he did not submit the relative declaration "thus reaching the total evasion of the tax, which has not been paid either in Italy or in the Netherlands".
“From there, the work of the soldiers of the First Group and of the Chiavari company has already opened two paths. The first is, in fact, that of the criminal investigation for failure to submit the VAT return. The second way is the assessment of the Revenue Agency, which will ask Booking to "return the loot" with interest ", summarizes Repubblica .
THE REPLICA OF BOOKING
The reaction of the famous hotel booking platform is laconic.
“In line with European VAT legislation, we believe that all our partner structures in the European Union, including the Italian ones, are responsible for assessing the payment of local VAT and for the payment to their respective governments”. So Booking.com had commented last year on the news of the investigation by the Guardia di Finanza of Genoa on the subject of tax evasion.
THE OTHER RELIEFS OF YELLOW FLAMES
"Among the findings made by the financiers, in addition to the failure to submit the VAT return, there are the irregular keeping of the accounts and the issue of an invoice without indicating VAT, again from 2013 to 2019" adds Repubblica .
AN INQUIRY IN RILENTO
So far, the Dutch authorities have shown little cooperation with the investigation.
"In January, a European investigation order (EIO) sent to the Dutch judicial authority was launched from the Genoa Public Prosecutor's Office, aimed at receiving further data on bookings relating to Italian structures managed by natural persons not subject to VAT and, above all, to place some questions to Olivier Bisserier and Marcela Martin, who held the position of CFO of the Booking group from 2013 to 2020. The tragicomic aspect of the story is that this is not the first request sent from Genoa to Rotterdam. The first was sent in August 2018 and was rejected in May 2019. The second was sent in August 2019 and, according to Reuters sources, has not yet received a response ”, Giuseppe Liturri reconstructed on Startmag last February.
THE MEETING BETWEEN PMS IN THE NETHERLANDS
But a turning point is on the horizon.
The Genoese prosecutors will in fact go to The Hague next October where they will meet their Dutch colleagues to be able to obtain documentation and also be able to question two Booking managers.
“The meeting, despite being in the Netherlands, will however take place in a“ neutral field ”, at the headquarters of Eurojust, the judicial cooperation unit of the European Union. An organism also created to overcome the wall that sometimes separates two or more states when investigations are carried out at an international level. It is a summit, therefore, which can be a turning point ”, remarked Repubblica .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia-on-demand/a-che-punto-e-linchiesta-su-booking-accusata-di-evasione/ on Mon, 22 Aug 2022 11:54:18 +0000.