HELSINKI: Online liquor sellers have had to fork out more than two million euros in unpaid taxes to Finnish Customs. The payout follows intense scrutiny of online alcohol sales by customs officials that began in 2016.
Finnish Customs announced Monday that it had raked in nearly two million euros in unpaid taxes from online retailers selling alcoholic beverages in Finland. Last year customs officials stepped up their monitoring of online alcohol retailers as part of a programme targeting the so-called grey economy.
The online sting operation paid off for customs officials, who found that many online retailers had not paid up the required taxes on their liquor sales.
However Customs said that the two million euros it was able to recover may be just the tip of the iceberg. The agency estimated that delinquent online retailers could be cheating the state of as much as 10 million euros in unpaid taxes every year. Customs officials say that even this estimate is dated, given that the online alcohol trade has been growing rapidly.
Finnish Customs’ scrutiny of online retailers has focused mainly on large companies. The cases it investigated involved firms operating in Estonia, which have been running Finnish-language webshops that offer alcoholic beverages.
