Google tax deal ‘disproportionately small’: United Kingdom committee

Last month, Google reached a $181 million tax settlement with Britian.

It called for HMRC to reopen the deal if new evidence becomes available as a result of the probes by European authorities.

Google’s fatcat boss Matt Brittin triggered uproar earlier this month when he admitted he has no idea how much he gets paid.

Italy is also demanding Google pay over 200 million euros in back taxes following an inquiry by the financial police. Mostly, this is done by routing business to their Ireland arm, where corporate taxes are a great deal less expensive.

“HMRC should also examine the approach adopted by other tax authorities to see what lessons it can learn, should they succeed in securing larger tax settlements from Google”, they said.

MPs said there was “palpable” public anger at the agreement with HMRC to cover taxes due over the past decade.

The committee said it was impossible to judge whether the Google deal itself was fair to the taxpayer because of the lack of transparency over the details of the settlement.

Michel Sapin, French finance minister, earlier in February, rejected doing a deal with Google as the United Kingdom authorities did for the period since 2005, agreeing a sum of £130m in back taxes, which was criticised by both government and opposition MPs.

A spokeswoman for Google France declined to comment on the amount when contacted, saying only that the company obeyed tax rules in all countries where it operated.

This is in comparison with all the size of Google’s company in britain.

The MPs went on to say that Google’s desire for more transparency around taxes was “at odds with the complex operational structure it has created which appears to be directed at minimising its tax liabilities”.

Last year, Google earned some $7 billion from United Kingdom customers, a figure that reflects 10 percent of the company’s worldwide revenues, the report from the Public Accounts Committee said. However, the spokesperson said the company complied with the tax rules of every country where it operates its business.

“We are committed to being as open and transparent as we can within the constraints of our statutory duty of taxpayer confidentiality”.