In yet another reminder of why Meta’s so keen to align with President Trump’s demands on content moderation, today, Italian officials have moved to penalize Meta, X, and LinkedIn for alleged tax fraud in the nation.

The case relates to value added tax (VAT), which the Italian government imposes on all goods and services exchanged in the nation. Italian tax authorities have argued that user registrations with social media platforms which monetize through ads should be viewed as taxable transactions in this respect, as they imply the exchange of a membership account in return for a user’s personal data.

And now, it’s looking to charge the social platforms accordingly.

As reported by Reuters:

“Italy is claiming 887.6 million euros ($961 million) from Meta, 12.5 million euros from X, and around 140 million euros from LinkedIn.These figures refer to the entire period under investigation, from 2015-2016 to 2021-2022, depending on the case, but the tax assessment notice now served only covers the years for which claims are set to expire, namely 2015 and 2016.”

So another massive fine for Meta, based on questionable logic, which really reflects the pressure being put on governments to squeeze more tax out of social platforms, because of their dominance over the ad market. And because the biggest losers in this are local publishers, who have significant influence over voters, governments continue to come up with whatever justification they can to get the platforms to pay up.

Which Meta, in particular, has had enough of.

And you can see why. Over the last few years, Meta has been fined over a billion dollars, per year, by EU authorities, related to data breaches, the linking of Facebook Marketplace to Facebook, illegally forcing users to accept personalized ads, and more. Meta’s also facing new penalties in Australia over the use of local news publisher content (which Meta doesn’t even want to use), while it’s also the subject of various other legal cases that could end with it being hit with more penalties.

The justifications in most of these cases are questionable, and Meta’s been calling on the U.S. government to help it push back against foreign regulations and penalties of this type.

And with Trump back in power, the White House has shown a willingness to take a stronger stand for U.S. businesses.

Earlier this month, the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) publicly criticized the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which he says is “incompatible with America’s free speech tradition.”

Last month, Vice President JD Vance also criticized EU regulations relating to AI innovation, while Trump himself has also threatened European imports with tariffs in penalty for tech regulations that harm U.S. companies.

With so much money on the line, it makes business sense for Meta to align with Trump for this reason. You may have questions about the morals of such, and about Meta’s backflips depending on who’s in power at the time. But from a pure logic standpoint, siding with Trump makes sense.

Meta currently has to wait 60 days before it can appeal the Italian fine and kick off the judicial process. And you can bet that Meta’s army of lobbyists in Washington will be using that time to push for government support in opposing this, and every other questionable international fine.