On Tuesday, November 5, 2024, the French and Dutch fiscal authorities raided the offices of Netflix in Paris and Amsterdam as part of an investigation into tax fraud. Officials from the two countries have been co-operating on the case since the investigation was opened in November 2022.
Netflix has not as yet made any specific comment on the raids, but insists the company complies with tax laws wherever it operates. The Amsterdam office serves as the headquarters of Netflix’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The French investigation is being carried out by the National Financial Prosecutor’s office (PNF), a special unit used for investigations into high-profile white-collar crimes, and relates to suspicions of “covering up serious tax fraud and off-the-books work”.
Netflix is under investigation also for its 2019, 2020 and 2021 tax filings. Authorities in the Netherlands were conducting simultaneous searches, and the co-operation between the two countries has been going on for “many months”.
Last year, French media outlet La Lettre reported that, until 2021, Netflix in France minimized its tax payments by underreporting its turnover generated in France to the Netherlands. After it abandoned this arrangement, La Lettre said, its annual declared turnover in France jumped from €47.1m ($51.3 million) in 2020 to €1.2 billion in 2021 (U.S. $1.31 billion).
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