The Dutch finance ministry is to appeal against a European Commission ruling which said it had given illegal state support to US coffee chain Starbucks.

In October the commission ordered the ministry to reclaim up to €30m in back taxes from Starbucks, which it said resulted from the illegal tax deal. The coffee company has already said it will appeal.

The Dutch tax office has made 14,619 advance tax agreements with international companies since 1991 and refused a further 1,590, the Financieele Dagblad said in June.

The cabinet backs the use of advance price agreements because they encourage job-creating multinationals to set up shop in the Netherlands and stop long disputes about tax bills.

In a statement, the ministry said the commission did not ‘convincingly demonstrate’ that the tax authority deviated from guidelines provided by the OECD.