WASHINGTON: The US stepped up its fight against the European Commission's crackdown on tax avoidance by Apple and other multinational companies, accusing the commission of unilateralism and overstepping its mandate.In a white paper, the US Treasury said the EC probe into alleged special tax treatment that certain EU countries gave Apple, Amazon Starbucks and Fiat Chrysler "undermines the international tax system. "With potentially billions of dollars in tax levies at stake, the Treasury also reiterated its view that the investigations "disproportionately" target US companies and would prevent Washington from recovering taxes that it is eying from the companies' offshore earnings. "These investigations have major implications for the United States. In particular, recoveries imposed by the Commission would have an outsized impact on US companies," said Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs Robert Stack in a statement. "This is a standard feature of EU state aid rules," the spokesperson said.

Source: Economic Times August 24, 2016 21:11 UTC