Meta ‘Strongly Disagrees’ That It Owes Italy $1.03B in Taxes

Meta, X, and LinkedIn have appealed Italy’s case that the social media platforms should pay value-added tax.

Italian tax authorities are seeking to establish a precedent for applying value-added tax to free user registrations on social media platforms. In March, they claimed Italy was owed:

• 887.6 million euros ($1.03 billion) from Meta.
• 12.5 million euros ($14.6 million) from X.
• approximately 140 million euros ($164.1 million) from Microsoft’s LinkedIn.

Meta, X, and LinkedIn submitted appeals to a first-instance tax court shortly after the deadline to respond to the tax assessment notice passed in mid-July, according to Reuters. In a statement, Meta said it “strongly disagrees with the idea that providing access to online platforms to users should be subject to VAT,” Reuters reported.

The case is one of many points of tension between US tech companies, which seem to be entering ...