Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax than sausage stall

● Austrian Chancellor attacks Malta

Amazon and Starbucks pay less tax in Austria than a local sausage stall, said the country’s Chancellor Christian Kern in a newspaper interview.

“Every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand, pays more tax in Austria than a multi-national corporation,” Mr Kern told Der Standard. “That goes for Starbucks, Amazon and other companies,” he said.

He added that EU countries with low corporate taxes were undermining the structure of the Union itself.

“What Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg or Malta are doing here lacks solidarity towards the rest of the European economy,” he said.

He praised the European Commission’s recent order that Apple should pay an additional €13bn in tax to Ireland.

On Tuesday – after a long investigation – the European Commission decided that Apple should pay the €13bn in extra tax, plus interest, to the Irish government because a longstanding tax deal with the US tech giant amounted to illegal state aid.

Apple and the Irish government have criticised the decision and the US company has said it is confident it will be overturned on appeal. Mr Kern, who heads Austria’s Social Democrats and the country’s coalition government, also said Facebook and Google each had sales of more than €100m in Austria.

“They massively suck up the advertising volume that comes out of the economy but pay neither corporation tax nor advertising duty in Austria,” he added.

As well as Apple, the European Commission has launched past or current investigations into the tax arrangements of Fiat, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Amazon.

Christian Kern