2016-01-11bloomberg.com

The European Union ordered Belgium to recover about 700 million euros ($762 million) in illegal tax breaks given to at least 35 companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev NVand BP Plc, as regulators continued a crackdown on overly generous tax schemes throughout the 28-nation bloc.

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"In essence, the scheme allowed companies to pay substantially less tax, simply because they are multinational," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition chief, told reporters in Brussels. "It distorts competition on the merits by putting smaller competitors who are not multinational on an unequal footing."

Tax deals including Apple Inc.'s arrangements with Ireland and Amazon.com Inc.'s agreements with Luxembourg are also under investigation by the EU, which last year ordered the Netherlands to recover as much as 30 million euros in back taxes from Starbucks Corp. The EU has said tax avoidance and evasion cost about 1 trillion euros a year.



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