THE HAGUE - The Dutch government said Friday it will appeal an EU ruling that Starbucks must pay up to 30 million euros ($34 million) in back taxes after being awarded an illegal tax break.
Starbucks recently agreed to move its European headquarters from Amsterdam to London
In a major blow to sweetheart tax arrangements, Brussels said last month that the deals the Netherlands had offered the US coffee giant and Luxembourg had awarded Italian automaker Fiat were illegal.
But Dutch Foreign Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told MPs Friday that the government disagreed with the European Commission's demand to reclaim two years of unpaid taxes from Starbucks.
"The government is of the opinion that the Commission does not convincingly demonstrate that the tax authority deviated from the statutory provisions," he wrote in a letter to MPs Friday.
"It follows that there is no state aid involved."
The Dutch government was seeking "certainty" and therefore it "appeals the Commission decision in the Starbucks case," he added.
A spokesman for the finance ministry told AFP the appeal had not yet been lodged with the European Commission, but was expected in the next few weeks.
Dijsselbloem told MPs that the Commission's ruling "deviates from national law" as well as the system in place for the members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
"The Dutch practice is lawful and compliant with the international system of the OECD," he insisted.