Starbucks, Amazon pay less tax than a sausage stand, Austria says

Multinationals like coffee chain Starbucks and online retailer Amazon pay less tax in Austria than one of the country’s tiny sausage stands, the republic’s centre-left chancellor lamented in an interview published on Friday.

Chancellor Christian Kern, head of the Social Democrats and of the centrist coalition government, also criticised internet giants Google and Facebook, saying that if they paid more tax subsidies for print media could increase.

“Every Viennese cafe, every sausage stand pays more tax in Austria than a multinational corporation,” Kern was quoted as saying in an interview with newspaper Der Standard, invoking two potent symbols of the Austrian capital’s food culture.

The Apple row was the latest spat between Brussels and Washington over company regulation. Last month, the Treasury issued a detailed legal argument that the EU Commission’s approach went against European laws.