As part of a tax fraud investigation, French and Dutch officials raided Netflix’s Paris and Amsterdam headquarters on Tuesday.
According to the reports, specialized financial investigators are searching “various locations” in France in connection with allegations of “covering up serious tax evasion and off-the-books work.” The investigation was initiated in November 2022.
Additionally, a group of French and Dutch officials searched Netflix’s Amsterdam offices for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“Dutch and French authorities have been working together on this illicit activity case for many months.”
The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) stated that it was “supporting the investigations,” which included Tuesday’s searches, while Dutch prosecutors acknowledged the searches “in the context of a French legal assistance request.”
In France, Netflix is being investigated for its 2019–2020–2021 tax returns. Netflix asserted that it complies with tax laws in every country where it operates after the inquiries were made public in a media article last year.
Based on a claim by the French publication La Lettre A, Netflix’s French business was set up until 2021 so that all users would sign up with a Dutch company, “reducing its tax bill.”
During 2019 and 2020, when it had almost seven million French users, it paid less than one million euros ($1.1 million at today’s prices) in taxes to Paris.
According to La Lettre A, authorities are currently attempting to ascertain if Netflix continued to make unlawful steps to reduce its stated profits and, thus, its tax liability.
