Italian tax police (Guardia di Finanza) searched Amazon’s Milan headquarters and managers’ homes amid a fresh investigation into the company’s local tax affairs.
Prosecutors in Milan have opened proceedings against the Luxembourg-based Amazon EU Sàrl and one of its directors over suspected failure to declare income.
The warrant seen by Reuters alleges that Amazon had a permanent establishment in Italy before August 2024, when it joined a co-operative compliance programme with the Italian tax authority and began paying taxes domestically.
According to the warrant, investigators found that Amazon EU Sarl terminated and then re-employed 159 staff who had previously worked for another Amazon entity in 2024, which prosecutors argue effectively created a permanent establishment in Italy up to that point.
During the searches, investigators seized computers and storage devices belonging to managers, including hard drives containing employee emails retained after deletion from Amazon systems.
Amazon said in a statement to Retail Insight Network that the Milan prosecutors’ actions were “aggressive and wholly disproportionate”.
The company said it was engaged in a “transparent dialogue with Italian tax authorities to gain clarity on complex technical matters”.
It added that in March 2025, it “submitted an application for enhanced cooperation with the Italian Revenue Agency requesting formal confirmation on the correct tax treatment of our activities, the same activities that are the subject of today’s action by the Prosecutor’s Office”.
The US major went on to say: “Unpredictable regulatory environments, disproportionate penalties, and protracted legal proceedings are increasingly affecting Italy's attractiveness as an investment destination.”
Separately, Amazon stated it had paid taxes in Italy throughout the period under scrutiny, with total tax contributions exceeding €1.7bn ($2.02bn) in 2024.
It also said it invested €4bn in the country that year and supported more than 20,000 Italian SMEs through Amazon.it.
The action forms part of a series of Italian tax and fraud cases involving Amazon.
In December, the company agreed to pay €510m to Italy’s tax collection agency to settle a dispute tied to alleged evasion of €1.2bn for 2019-2021.
Prosecutors are also pursuing investigations into alleged tax evasion covering 2021-2024 and suspected customs and tax fraud linked to Chinese imports.
A separate inquiry into labour practices concluded after an Italian Amazon unit paid compensation and discontinued a delivery staff monitoring system.
The Guardia di Finanza also inspected the offices of auditor KPMG, which is not under investigation.
The inspection is linked to a probe into whether Amazon maintained an undisclosed permanent establishment in Italy between 2019 and 2024 and therefore owed additional local tax.
