“The Amazon Tax? Crazy thing.” Roberto Liscia, president of Netcomm, has no difficulty in defining the measure that will arrive today in the Council of Ministers. The government is studying the hypothesis of a tax to hit distribution and home delivery companies that use polluting vehicles. The last mile of ecommerce. And for Liscia, president of the Italian digital commerce consortium, it is a step backwards. And a demonstration of myopia, because in this way the government demonstrates that it “hasn’t understood the platform economy and how much it is doing good for small Italian merchants”.
Liscia, what’s not to convince you about the Amazon tax?
“There are so many things wrong. One above all: it is a lie that the home delivery of the distribution companies are more polluting. There are authoritative studies from the Milan Polytechnic and several German universities that tell how these services are on average 20% less polluting than traditional purchases”.
Is the Amazon tax a tax against Amazon?
“No because it doesn’t affect Amazon, but the couriers. A sector already in great difficulty due to the increase in energy costs. It is not the large platforms that are affected, but the small ones that deliver at home. And online sales are affected, which ends with home deliveries”.
It should help David (the small merchant) defend himself against Goliath (the large platform).
“E-commerce is no longer an element of conflict between the big and the small. The two worlds have coexisted for some time. It is a system that creates employment, and skilled employment. And the whole so far was growing. We are also an exporting country, many resellers sell overseas through Amazon. This measure affects those who grow and those who export”.
For the government it is also a green tax. In defense of the environment.
“As I explained, the tax also affects small merchants who make home deliveries. And then, a tax on polluting products already exists. In big cities there is the ZTL. Thus another tax is added to the sector. Furthermore, how do you distinguish whether an operator inside his van has deliveries for shops or for a home user? The truth is that ecommerce is already green with it. Digital, the use of data reduces polluting emissions”.
Excuse me, why call it Amazon tax then?
“I don’t know, but it seems like an ideological choice. Today 65% of sales on Amazon are made by small merchants. Today it is a sort of telephone operator that connects supply and demand. And it has led over 30,000 merchants to digitize, because with Amazon they sell more. Digital platforms have become an essential commodity for the economy. They are the present and the future of commerce. Therefore they must be developed, not fought”.
Today the CDM should also discuss a possible reform of the digital tax, currently at 3%.
“A useless discussion. On the digital tax there will be a European law that will supersede the national ones”.