[HN Gopher] Italian prosecutors seek trial for Amazon, 4 execs i...
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Italian prosecutors seek trial for Amazon, 4 execs in alleged $1.4B
tax evasion
Author : amarcheschi
Score : 228 points
Date : 2026-03-12 15:34 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| myrmidon wrote:
| It would be really nice to have a few relevant numbers in the
| article for context.
|
| If this is just from foreign sellers operating on amazon.it, then
| 1.4B of evaded taxes sounds like a lot to me, because the total
| revenue should be well under 50B/y, so this would be a
| significant fraction of total sales tax (and I'd expect most
| sellers to _not_ be foreign and thus unaffected).
|
| Would be quite nice to see rich people held accountable for once,
| curious how this will go.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > and I'd expect most sellers to not be foreign and thus
| unaffected
|
| Most sellers probably are foreign.
| mesmertech wrote:
| As a solo indiehacker in Europe, its crazy that I have to be so
| worried about VAT related things and big tech just goes around
| the whole thing and doesn't even expect to be charged just fined
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Well, for once execs are being investigated as well
| cbg0 wrote:
| You only have to be worried if you're doing something illegal,
| like the guys in the article. Misfiling something won't land
| you in jail, just some fines at the most. Intent matters quite
| a bit.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| When you're not wealthy, "some fines at most" can be a really
| nasty setback
| omnimus wrote:
| No really the fines in line with the profits and your
| intent.
|
| Businesses who get into trouble because of taxes are doing
| it intentionally. Or somebody in the company does it
| intentionally.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| " just some fines at the most. "
|
| That's ok for the big players with deep pockets. For the
| little guy this is a much bigger problem. As it should. It
| would just be nice if law breaking would be a bigger problem
| for the bigger companies too.
| riffraff wrote:
| I think GPs point is that the fines are generally not
| crazy.
|
| I misfiled stuff a few times and got fined, it's annoying
| but it's not something that will break your bank.
|
| The behaviour of the tax office varies quite a lot from
| country to country tho.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| Yes. No country is out here destroying productive
| businesses because they made a paperwork mistake. The
| penalty is usually proportionate.
|
| But don't trust me, ask your lawyer.
| worik wrote:
| > No country is out here destroying productive businesses
| because they made a paperwork mistake.
|
| New Zealand. The Accident Compensation Corporation, a
| compulsory insurance scheme, is absolutely feral. Will
| crush you "because rules" without a thought.
| pocksuppet wrote:
| What were the rules you broke, and what was the penalty?
| tekla wrote:
| I've misfiled several times due to being young and
| stupid.
|
| Each time I got a piece of mail asking my to call the IRS
| to clear it up, and every time the agent was nice and
| very helpful clearing it up, and not fined.
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| Last time I misfiled I got a check from the IRS for a
| couple hundred bucks.
| dathinab wrote:
| If you are found personally responsible for tax evasion
| >1e6EUR then the minimal penalty is prison sentence without
| parole option. This is true for many EU countries including
| Italy. Idk. about the max. prison length in Italy for this
| but e.g. where I live in the EU you are likely looking at ~15
| years for 1e9EUR tax evasion.
|
| The reason executives commonly avoid such penalties is
| because they avoid being found personally liable by claiming
| they didn't known, did misunderstood the situation, where
| deceived by others etc.
|
| Through it should be noted that this case is a bit unusual
| and complicated. The tax dispute itself isn't as simple as
| Amazone directly having avoided paying their own taxes. And
| the case of missing taxes has already been settled. This new
| current investigations are criminal investigation (i.e. the
| failure of paying taxes is assumed to have been intentional
| instead of a booking error) and seem to be more targeting
| executives for having committed crimes (instead of targeting
| Amazone the company).
|
| Or in other words, Italian prosecutors are feed up US
| companies not caring for EU law and no one being hold liable.
|
| ---
|
| (1): Without option to have it replaced with long time
| parole.
| mcs5280 wrote:
| Let me guess. Jeff/Andy make a donation to a certain someone.
| Tariffs on Italy are threatened. Case is dropped.
| robtherobber wrote:
| I think that normally that may be the approach (and I'm not
| singling out Italy for this, it probably applies to most
| countries).
|
| On this occasion, however:
|
| > In all previous cases involving other international groups,
| once a settlement was reached and payment made, prosecutors
| closed related criminal investigations, either through plea
| deals or by dropping the cases.
|
| > This time, however, Milan prosecutors did not share the tax
| authority's approach and decided to press ahead with their
| probe, leading to a request that the suspects be sent to trial.
| mr_00ff00 wrote:
| Damn, is anyone an expert that can speak to the criminal law
| involved here?
|
| It's crazy that executives can jump around the law and not
| face any criminal charges, then the company picks up the bill
| (although I'm not ignorant thinking this isn't usual)
|
| I'm just curious to learn more about how often this is the
| case and you usually what happens with people afterward
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| While I share your sentiment, perhaps its better that it
| remain murky to give prosecutors a chance to succeed.
| limagnolia wrote:
| I don't know about Italian law, but in the US tax evasion
| is pretty difficult in many cases to prove. It is illegal
| in the US to deliberately defraud the IRS to evade paying
| taxes, it is not illegal to make a mistake, or claim a
| deduction you think you can claim when the IRS decides you
| can't, etc. So prosecutors must prove you had an intent to
| evade taxes you knew you owed. Because they can rarely meet
| that bar, criminal charges are rarely brought.
| lormayna wrote:
| In Italy, if you are charged of tax evasion, you need to
| demonstrate that you are not evading. It's called
| "inversion proof"
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| that seems terrible
| barbazoo wrote:
| Doesn't seem to be universal but applied narrowly for
| example for financial crimes.
| zoobab wrote:
| "Tariffs on Italy are threatened. Case is dropped."
|
| Justice is independent in most EU countries.
| cbg0 wrote:
| There's quite a few asterisks that need to be appended to
| "independent".
| gpderetta wrote:
| It is quite independent in Italy actually. The government
| is pushing for a constitutional amendment to help "fix"
| this feature. There is going to be a referendum on the
| change very soon.
| N19PEDL2 wrote:
| For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Italian
| _constitutional_re...
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| I have ancestral Italian Citizenship but have never lived
| in Italy.
|
| I am occasionally called upon by the local consulate to
| perform my civic duty and vote.
|
| Just this week I sent them back my ballot, now marked,
| for this referendum in a sealed envelope.
|
| This referendum required me to dig more deeply than usual
| into Italian politics before I could decide which way I
| wanted to vote.
| mr_00ff00 wrote:
| I am familiar with this but thought it was for separating
| prosecutors from judges?
|
| Is this some indirect effect of that?
| riffraff wrote:
| the current reform is complicated, and reasonable people
| can disagree on how to vote, but it goes a bit further
| than separating prosecutors from judges.
|
| Namely, it also changes the self-regulating body (the
| CSM, Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura) of the
| judiciary so that the government and parliament have a
| bit more authority and the judiciary have a bit less: the
| organ is split in two, its judiciary members are no
| longer elected but picked randomly while a part is
| decided by the political side, and there's an even higher
| special tribunal.
|
| Proponents say this is necessary, opponents say this is
| leading towards stronger power of the political majority
| over the judiciary.
| lormayna wrote:
| > while a part is decided by the political side
|
| Now, roughly one third of CSM members is nominated by the
| Parliament and the other one is elected by judges,
| according to the "correnti" (a sort of parties)
| lormayna wrote:
| > The government is pushing for a constitutional
| amendment to help "fix" this feature. There is going to
| be a referendum on the change very soon.
|
| Italian here. It's not like that: the referendum is about
| definitely enforcing the career separation about public
| persecutor and judges. Actually they are under the same
| authority and the member of this authority are elected
| according to a sort of political parties (unique case in
| the whole EU) and this creates some distortions in career
| growths and nominations. The new schema will create two
| different authorities and the members will be selected
| according to a ballot.
|
| A similar proposal was made by the left wing parties few
| years ago, when they were at the government
| paganel wrote:
| > It is quite independent in Italy actually.
|
| Ask any Romanian and they'll tell you they're not. Ask
| them about the Mario Iorgulescu case [1], with the
| Italian justice system refusing to extradite him here to
| Romania only because his (wealthy) dad paid the right
| people off. And Iorgulescu is not the only such case.
|
| [1] https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/law-
| crime/mario...
| beardyw wrote:
| But I think tariffs cannot be imposed on individual countries
| in the EU. At least that was how I understood the situation
| with Spain.
| riffraff wrote:
| that is also true. Doesn't really stop Trump from
| threatening to do it all the tim tho.
| sheiyei wrote:
| Nothing stops that man from saying anything, he himself
| the least.
| napolux wrote:
| It usually works more like: - we want 1.4B, but
| it will take 10 years in courts - best I can do is 800M
| (or even lower) - ok, we'll take it
|
| source: I'm italian and many tech giants did this already.
| Apple opened an academy in Naples too.
| epolanski wrote:
| Not only tech giants, everybody from celebrities to random
| Joes can get away with it.
|
| My mother's husband owed 70k+ EUR in taxes and at some point
| the judge proposed and he agreed to 2800 euros.
|
| The trick is to not have a bank account in your name only,
| you have it joint with a child/spouse and they can't take
| your money. Nor they can take your house, if you only have
| one.
|
| Eventually under those situations the judges try to take
| anything rather than nothing.
|
| I'm not defending this situation, just saying it's widespread
| and the fact that every two governments come one that does a
| "condono", which is essentially "let's agree with tax evaders
| for some 50% of the tax they owe so they are happy and we see
| something" doesn't help.
|
| Harsher punishment should be warranted, but you can't go to
| prison for tax evasion.
| sheiyei wrote:
| You 100% should be able to go to prison from tax evasion.
| Not to fill prisons just to line prison owners' pockets
| like in the US, but definitely have the possibility for
| egregious offences.
| keeganpoppen wrote:
| you can... it's just not really clear that anyone does.
| that said, i think if you polled the average joe on the
| street, they would overwhelmingly say that you can, which
| is probably a net gain for society.
| darkwater wrote:
| > The trick is to not have a bank account in your name
| only, you have it joint with a child/spouse and they can't
| take your money.
|
| Yes they can take 100% of your part of that bank account
| which amounts at total / # of owners.
| louiskottmann wrote:
| The trick is in the mud between what's yours and what's
| theirs. The induced doubt is lucrative.
| flerchin wrote:
| Honest sellers pay VAT, and scofflaws get sales. Yeah they gotta
| throw down the gauntlet here or else VAT is only for suckers.
| Yizahi wrote:
| Billionaire doesn't pay tax: let's settle with you paying half of
| all stolen money as a fine and we'll drop the case.
|
| A regular citizen doesn't pay tax: lets jail or deport you, bar
| the entry for a decade, take away your home, car and anything you
| own in general and make you unable to find job for the rest of
| your life. Also your tax is double that of the billionaire, glhf
| ;) .
| creddit wrote:
| In Italy, the only entities consistently paying taxes are large
| corporations. Literally everyone else is constantly evading
| them.
| randoments wrote:
| as a freelancer i must be doing something wrong then.
| creddit wrote:
| Actually, you're doing something right. Everyone else is
| doing something wrong.
| newswasboring wrote:
| Taxes dont get deducted from people's salaries?
| riffraff wrote:
| they do, the above comment is a generic populist rant
| lormayna wrote:
| As Italian, I really disagree. The only entities that pay all
| the taxes are employees because the taxes are collected
| directly from the salaries.
|
| Big companies have the opportunity to make tax elusion (there
| is a reason why many Italian companies have legal HQ in
| Netherlands or Luxembourg), small companies, artisans and
| freelancers usually avoid to pajly VAT
| tekla wrote:
| https://academic.oup.com/book/36357/chapter/319888230#426336.
| ..
|
| > In percentage terms this means that during the 1970s
| between 15 and 20 percent of Italians evaded taxes while the
| rate climbed to 26 percent in the 1980s. In the 1990s, tax
| evasion fell again, hovering between 15 and 20 percent.
| Workers employed in manufacturing evade very little, whereas
| the highest evasion rates can be found among the self-
| employed
|
| > The severity of evasion becomes obvious when we consider
| that the Italian state annually collects only a total of
| EUR350 billion while losing EUR250 billion through evasion
| (D'Attoma 2016).
|
| > If one asks Italians why they evade taxes, they primarily
| say that they evade because everyone else does so
|
| > A distant second is the reason that Italians would be more
| likely to pay taxes if they had the feeling that the state
| would spend their money more wisely. Much lower in the
| ranking come issues such as the soft penalties for evasive
| behavior, the complexity of the tax rules, and the
| unlikeliness of being caught. A total of 87.1 percent of all
| Italians think that their fellow citizens evade taxes
| Bombthecat wrote:
| They will settle for a few million lol
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