The Paris and Amsterdam offices of streaming giant Netflix have been raided by French and Dutch authorities as part of a tax fraud investigation, French judicial sources say.
Netflix Europe PHOTO: Archive
Officials from the two countries have been cooperating in the case since the investigation was opened in November 2022.
Netflix has yet to comment on the divestments, but insists it complies with tax laws wherever it operates.
The Amsterdam office is the headquarters of the company’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to bbc.com.
The French investigation is being conducted by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), a special unit used to investigate high-profile white-collar crimes.
This refers to suspicions of “coverage of serious tax fraud and unofficial activities“, according to PNF.
The company is also being investigated for its tax returns for 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The French sources said that authorities in the Netherlands are carrying out simultaneous searches and that the cooperation between the two countries lasts for “many months”.
Last year, French publication La Lettre reported that until 2021, Netflix in France minimized its tax payment by declaring turnover generated in France to the Netherlands.
After ditching the arrangement, La Lettre said its annual reported turnover in France had jumped from €47.1m (US$51.3m; £39.6m) in 2020 to €1.2bn EUR in 2021.
However, the publication says that investigators are trying to determine whether Netflix continued to try to minimize its profits after 2021.
Netflix arrived in France more than 10 years ago, opening its Paris office in 2020. It has about 10 million subscribers in the country, according to the AFP news agency.
