MILAN – Finance police have seized a record more than 779 million euros from Airbnb on orders of an investigating judge following a request by state prosecutors probing alleged tax evasion by the short-term rental platform Airbnb Ireland Unlimited and three people who were executives of the company between 2017 and 2021, judicial sources said Tuesday.

 Prosecutors argue that under an Italian law of 2017 Airbnb is liable to pay a 21 percent flat tax of earnings garnered by the non-professional hosts who rent their homes through the website. Airbnb interpreted the law to mean it was obliged only to collect the flat tax for professional renters in addition to the tourism sojourn tax that it pays to local authorities while informing other users of what the company sees as their tax liability.

 Airbnb challenged the 2017 in regional Italian courts while Italy’s Council of Sate took the case to European Court of Justice which ruled in December that Italy can apply the tax, giving the prosecutor’s office the green light for the investigation that climaxed with the seizing of the 779 million euros.

 jp