Japan Wants Amazon to Pay $119 Million in Taxes
My Clippings July 6th, 2009 by System
Automatically pulled from My Clippings on NewsGator Online
Amazon is big in Japan–though that’s not always a good thing. Being big carries with it certain responsibilities, like paying a lot of taxes, which is something the online retailer forgot to do for a few years. This according to the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, which is accusing Amazon.com International Sales of not reported income in the country between 2003 and 2005. Whoops.
The result of the action–or rather inaction–is a rather loft $119 million tax bill. Amazon has apparently been reporting the amounts in the US instead. TechCrunch explains it thusly,
The way Amazon operated so far is that every time Japanese customers buy something from Amazon’s Japanese website, they legally make contracts of purchase with Amazon offices in the US. The problem for the Japanese taxation bureau: These sales were booked and taxed in the US, even though Amazon operates two companies in Japan, Amazon Japan and Amazon Japan Logistics.
Amazon, naturally, is disputing the charges.
