Amazon.com Inc. has started booking revenue from retail sales in individual European countries, instead of channeling all sales through low-tax Luxembourg, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The change was made effective on May 1, a company spokesman told the journal. Amazon said it had started preparing to diversify its retail sales structure two years ago, the journal reported.

Amazon did not respond to e-mail or phone requests for comment.

The change at the e-commerce company has come amid greater scrutiny of corporate tax avoidance on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years.

European Union antitrust regulators opened an investigation into Amazon’s tax-minimising arrangements with Luxembourg in October. The investigation focuses on whether Luxembourg broke EU state aid rules by agreeing to a deal which allows Amazon to operate almost tax-free in Europe.

The EU’s antitrust chief said earlier this month that EU regulators would miss a June deadline to decide whether the tax deals granted by individual member states to Amazon and other companies such as Apple Inc. and Starbucks Corp. were legal because they lacked some data.

Luxembourg has faced international criticism following media revelations in November based on leaked documents, dubbed ‘LuxLeaks’, that detailed its role in helping companies channel profits through the country and pay low tax rates rather than higher rates in states where they did more business.

Amazon set up in Luxembourg in 2005. European newspapers reported that this arrangement deprived European governments of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax that it might otherwise have owed. But a 2012 Reuters examination of accounts filed by 25 Amazon units in six countries shows how they also allowed the company to avoid paying more tax in the US, where the company is based. The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wants $1.5 billion in back taxes.

In effect, Amazon used inter-company payments to form a tax shield for the group, behind which it has accumulated $2 billion to help finance its expansion.

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