Uber lobbying campaign did not lead to special tax treatment in Netherlands, report says

AMSTERDAM Reuters experts have found that an Uber lobbying campaign between 2013 and 2015 did not lead to special tax treatment for the U.S. company in the Netherlands, where it has its international headquarters.

The Finance Ministry appointed a panel to review the Dutch tax office's treatment of Uber after an international consortium of investigative journalists reported leaks on company communications on the European tax strategy.

The document sent to parliament on Tuesday said that no advantaging of Uber took place at the end of the investigative report.

Whatever Uber hoped to achieve in terms of special fiscal treatment did not succeed. An Uber spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the company was looking at the findings before responding. In Amsterdam, there are around 1,000 employees of Uber International BV.

The Dutch government has been trying to improve its reputation as an enabler of tax avoidance by multinationals after criticism from other governments and tax fairness groups.

Dutch tax authorities don't reveal information about how they treat individual companies and parts of the findings were redacted.

In a redacted passage, the review said that pressure from Uber and the Dutch government's own agency tasked with attracting foreign investment was resisted in an effective way by the Dutch tax office.