In January 9, 2018, the German tax office, without prior notice, seized nearly 100 Chinese online businesses at Amazon's German station and confiscated goods on the grounds that these online retailers were suspected of evading taxes at Amazon's German station. According to sources, some Chinese electricity suppliers lost 2 million to 3 million euros.

It is understood that the German tax department launched a surprise attack during Christmas 2017. After being sealed, a letter was sent by Amazon. The letter said it was designed to cooperate with the German tax bureau to dispose of illegal dealers in the third country on Amazon. It said that it had previously told the Chinese e-commerce related tax information and would not tolerate individual tax evasion.

According to the content of the letter, it is determined that the German tax authorities believe that the account does not meet the requirements of the German VAT, and may have a long-term low declaration or zero tax. The seller who received the mail could not continue to receive orders, nor could he use the FBA logistics warehouse provided by Amazon, and the existing goods in the warehouse were also sealed up. In addition, the existing funds in the account will remain frozen unless the tax procedures are confirmed to be in accordance with the German regulations.

At present, there are more than 1 Chinese merchants in Amazon, Germany, but only 432 of them are registered in Germany's tax department. Meanwhile, there are also online sales platforms such as eBay Germany, including eBay Germany, which has more than 3500 mainland and Hongkong businessmen. According to German tax law, 19% of value added tax is imposed on goods imported from Germany to Germany. A German taxpayer union said last November that the German tax department lost 1 billion euros a year in tax evasion on the electronic business platform.

In fact, not only in Germany, Amazon overseas station has been investigated or prosecuted for tax evasion in Italy, the United States and other places. At the end of 2017, Amazon sellers received mail, saying that the U.S. station would begin to levy a sales tax since January 1, 2018, which Washington would take the lead. Trump, the president of the United States, sent a message on the social networking site, insisting that Amazon pay the sales tax.

Chinese businessmen, such as Amazon overseas station and other cross-border e-commerce platforms, will inevitably usher in the era of paying taxes. Paying taxes means that Chinese businesses will face enormous cost pressures. In the future, the profit gap can be controlled by raising commodity prices. German media have expressed concern that the result of the government's action is that German consumers will eventually buy Chinese smartphones at a higher price. This is equally bad for Chinese businesses. Higher commodity prices will weaken the attractiveness of consumers and reduce their competitive advantage with physical stores.