Italy has accused online hotel reservation giant Booking.com of avoiding more than 150 million euros ($183 million) in value-added tax, saying the platform—not the local rental properties—should have paid.
A Netherlands-based company—separately identified as Booking.com—regularly issues invoices that don’t include VAT to its partner structures in Italy, the financial police said Thursday. The company then applies a reverse-charge mechanism that transfers responsibility for declaring and paying VAT from the seller to the buyer, said the police—in this case, the local rentals.
Between 2013 and ...