Milan’s prosecutor’s office estimated today, at the conclusion of an investigation by the financial police against Meta, that the American giant, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, owes more than 887 million euros in VATin the context of her income earned between 2015 and 2021.

Although the registration at Facebook and the Instagram it’s theoretically free, users are required, in order to open an account, to consent to sharing “personal data and information” and their social media “interactions” are rife with inferences about the platform.

Users are thus bound to “a transactional relationship” in which each party has obligations to the other, according to the prosecution.

In the case of Metathe conditions imposed are of “commercial purpose,” Milan prosecutor Marcello Viola points out in a press release, thus justifying the taxation of these non-monetary transactions.

The prosecution therefore suspects that “the legal representatives of Meta Platforms Ireland Limited” committed the misdemeanor of “failing to declare” income in order to avoid paying VAT.

Meta failed to declare for 2015-2021 revenues of €3.99 billionto which a Value Added Tax of 887.6 million euros corresponds, the prosecution estimates.

In addition, the prosecution points out that other Italian public authorities have also concluded that Meta’s services are not free, including the Competition Commission in 2018 and the Council of State in 2021.