How much tax does Amazon pay? Jeff Bezos faces protests before lavish Venice wedding
Protesters in Venice continue to demonstrate against Jeff Bezos's upcoming wedding as organisers deny they are taking over the city.
About 200 guests are expected at the marriage between the Amazon boss, 61, and journalist Lauren Sanchez, 55, in the Italian city this week, including a host of celebrities.
But Venice has erupted in protest at the nuptials, with opponents accusing Bezos of treating the city as his own personal wedding venue.
Anti-Bezos posters have adorned the city for the past number of weeks, while residents have erected banners with messages such as "No space for Bezos", a reference to his company, Blue Origin, which has launched a rocket into orbit.
On Monday, the sentiment against the wedding was ratcheted up a notch when environmental group Greenpeace unfurled a huge banner in St Mark's Square featuring the tech billionaire's face which read: "If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax".
The wedding between Bezos and Sanchez is expected to take place over three days later this week, from 26 to 28 June.
Details have been kept under wraps but MailOnline reported the couple will tie the knot on Friday 27 June.
Read more: Everything to know about Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos' wedding in Venice (Business Insider)
The Times reported that Bezos was forced to change the wedding venue earlier this week from the Grade di Santa Maria della Misericordia hall, which has easy access by water or on foot, to a more secure location at the city's former shipyard at Arsenale, in an effort to dodge protesters.
Among the 200 guests are US president Donald Trump's children Donald Jr and Ivanka, as well as Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates.
There are a number of reasons why people are demonstrating against the wedding.
Firstly, Venetians have long been concerned about over-tourism in their city, which brings in 20 million visitors a year despite having a population of just 50,000.
One of the protesters, Marta Sottoriva, told The Independent the wedding illustrated that 'a city can be sold to the highest bidder with the most money'.
In a statement, wedding planners Lanza & Baucina said: "Rumours of 'taking over' the city are entirely false and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality.
"Before the recent news of protests arose, we had worked for there to be minimal negative impact or disruption to the lives of Venetians and the city's visitors."
And Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro said the wedding is welcome and insisted it will not cause disruption to people who live in the city.
Bezos and Sanchez are sourcing about 80% of their wedding provisions from Venetian vendors, the Associated Press reported.
The other reason protesters are against the wedding is the ongoing legal battle to make Amazon pay more in taxes.
Clara Thompson, from Greenpeace, said: 'While Venice is sinking under the weight of the climate crisis, billionaires are partying like there is no tomorrow on their mega yachts.
'The real issue is a broken system that lets billionaires skip out on taxes while everyone else is left to foot the bill."
Yahoo News UK has approached Amazon for comment.
- UK
Last week, the independent Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), the UK's industry watchdog, said it had launched an investigation into allegations Amazon is failing to pay its suppliers on time, saying it had "reasonable grounds" to suspect the company was in breach of the groceries supply code of practice. Amazon said it would "co-operate fully" with the investigation.
And at the beginning of this month, Amazon pledged to improve its practices for monitoring fake reviews and how they are used to boost product ratings after an investigation by the UK competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
- EU
In December 2023, Amazon won a legal battle with the EU after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled it did not have to pay €250m in back taxes.
In February 2025, it emerged that Italian prosecutors are investigating Amazon and three of its executives over alleged tax evasion worth €1.2bn. Reuters reported that three Amazon managers and the company's European unit based in Luxembourg were under investigation for alleged tax fraud in online sales in Italy between 2019 and 2021.
Amazon's full UK operation paid a total of £932m in tax in 2023, which included business rates, corporation tax and national insurance contributions, a rise from the £781m it paid in 2022.
This was out of an annual revenue of more than £27bn, meaning it paid 3.45% of that in tax, a percentage that was described as "a relative pittance" by Andy Prendergast, national secretary at the GMB union.
Last September, Amazon UK Services announced that it had paid corporation tax for the first since since 2020 after a tax break introduced by then prime minister Rishi Sunak was scrapped.
Amazon UK Services, which employs more than of the company's staff in the UK, said it paid £18.7m in "current tax", in 2023, which is understood to have been largely corporation tax.
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Everything we know about Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's opulent Venice wedding as protests continue
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