Milan’s prosecutor’s office estimated today, at the conclusion of an investigation by the financial police against , that the American giant, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, owes more than 887 million euros to , as part of its income acquired between 2015 and 2021.
While Facebook and Instagram are theoretically free to sign up for, users are required to open an account to consent to sharing “personal data and information,” and their social media “interactions” are rife with inferences about the platform.
Users are thus bound to “a transactional relationship” in which each party has obligations to the other, according to the prosecution.
In Meta’s case, the conditions imposed are of “commercial purpose,” Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola points out in a press release, thus justifying the taxation of these non-monetary transactions.
The prosecution therefore suspects that “the legal representatives of the company Meta Platforms Ireland Limited” committed the misdemeanor of “failing to declare” income with the aim of avoiding the payment of VAT.
Meta failed to declare for the period 2015-2021 revenues of 3.99 billion euros, to which corresponds a Value Added Tax of 887.6 million euros, the prosecution estimates.
In addition, the prosecution points out that other Italian public authorities have also concluded that Meta’s services are not free, including the Competition Commission in 2018 and the Council of State in 2021.
RES/EMP
