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I don't think you have misunderstood, the linked press release explicitly says that > to restore fair competition, Belgium now has to recover the full unpaid t

I don't think you have misunderstood, the linked press release explicitly says that > to restore fair competition, Belgium now has to recover the full unpaid tax from the at least 35 multinational companies that have benefitted I fully agree that this should not happen. If you can't rely on the law of those nominally sovereign European countries to actually apply, that's very damaging indeed. Not being able to rely on the law as written is one marker of a failed state.

Brakenshire 11y ago
I'm not sure this is actually a tax law, rather than a series of sweetheart deals made by the Belgian tax authority based on an interpretation of law which subsequently turned out to be illegal. > Under such [four year, renewable] tax rulings, the actual recorded profit of a multinational is compared with the hypothetical average profit a stand-alone company in a comparable situation would have made. The alleged difference in profit is deemed to be "excess profit" by the Belgian tax authorities, and the multinational's tax base is reduced proportionately. This is based on a premise that multinational companies make "excess profit" as a result of being part of a multinational group, e.g. due to synergies, economies of scale, reputation, client and supplier networks, access to new markets. In practice, the actual recorded profit of companies concerned was usually reduced by more than 50% and in some cases up to 90%. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-42_en.htm http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-42_en.htm