How Google avoided a British tax bill of £450m

By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:14 PM on 20th December 2009

Google avoided paying £450million in corporation tax on its £1.6billion earnings from advertising in Britain last year.
Accounts show the company paid HM Revenue and Customs only £141,519 on other earnings.
Google managed to avoid paying millions here because its
European headquarters is in Dublin - and advertising earnings from
customers in Britain are funnelled through to the Irish subsidiary.
Finding loopholes: Google pays tax in Ireland for all its UK revenuesAccountants say that if the £1.6billion advertising revenue stayed in Britain, it would be subject to corporation tax at 28-30 per cent rather than the 15 per cent levy in Ireland.
Google's bill would have been up to £450million.

But even the accounts for its Irish operation show a low tax bill. While Google is not accused of any wrongdoing, the tax it paid in 2008 was just £6.7million.
Spokesman Peter Barron said: 'Google makes a big investment in the UK, with more than 800 employees, and we make a substantial contribution to local and national taxation.
'But the fact is that our European headquarters is in Dublin. We comply fully with the tax laws in all the countries in which we operate.
'It would be wrong to think of Google's revenues from UK advertisers as solely the result of operations carried out locally.'

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Why are people blaming Google?
If you were running a company and had to choose between paying 30% tax and 15% tax which would you honestly pick?
Google owes Britains tax payers nothing, it shouldn't even be brought up. They are not taking your tax money to put immigrants with 8 kids in million pound mansions, the government is.
If i were running a company I'd like to do as much as possible to avoid funding such a system, why should Google pay 100% more tax to fill the troughs of the government and the PC brigades and Big Brother systems?
- Rob, Nottingham, 20/12/2009 19:46

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Oh please, Google reigns for a good reason; they are a GREAT service, there's no other search engine out there that can compete with the amount of the data they have access to. The only people that are going to be upset about this article are the ones who want to blame the haves for themselves being have-nots. If there was a THIRTY percent tax against my company, you better believe that I'd be finding anyway around it. That's astronomical. Make taxes work for the companies and they might wast to give you a share. Oh and before anyone gets butt-hurt think about how many JOBS google provides.
- A-neilsen, vaine/USA, 20/12/2009 19:45

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Billionairess Leona Hemsley of New York stated that "only the poor pay tax". She left her billions to her dog called TROUBLE. Dogs are more important than people because they know their place in society. The poor should be grateful for their government food stamps or in Britain for free everything. Its not that cold out there is it?
- Eric Grantby, London England, 20/12/2009 19:33

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Good for you Google, you are much sharper than your critics here, if it's legal then well done.
Lets just hope the Bankers can't do the same with the bonus money they have stolen from the tax payer of this country.
- Jeremy Mullis, Colchester, 20/12/2009 19:22

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I don't condone tax evasion of course, but at least Google treats its employees with dignity, which is worth much more than tax in my opinion. There are lots of companies that don't evade the tax bill, but treat their employees awfully. McDonalds is a great example of this, as is Tesco..
- R, Croydon, 20/12/2009 19:06

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Don´t be naive, the rich don´t pay taxes, it´s the middle class that do that.
- Bob Watts, Cuernavaca Mexico, 20/12/2009 19:05

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