January 25, 2019
MILAN (Reuters) – The European arm of U.S. credit card group VISA has paid 13.2 million euros ($15 million) to settle a dispute in Italy over alleged tax evasion, a judicial document filed by Milan prosecutors showed.
According to the document, which was filed with a Milan judge on Dec. 18, prosecutors found that the allegations against VISA Europe Service Inc. (VESI) revolved around transfer pricing and that no crime was committed.
The investigation, which was opened in early 2017, alleged VESI had evaded taxes on revenues from 2009 to 2015 for a total of 9.6 million euros.
VESI did not respond to Reuters’ requests to comment.
In recent years, U.S. tech giants, including Google, Amazon and Facebook, have paid more than 800 million euros to settle tax disputes in Italy.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, writing by Giulio Piovaccari. Editing by Jane Merriman)
