We have corporation tax as well as income tax for a reason.
I'm no accountant or tax lawyer, but it's obvious Google are playing games with the UK. According to their own filings, they made $4bn from UK sales in the last financial year.
The representative yesterday shrugged it off and tried to make out all Google do in the UK is have a bunch of promotions/localization staff. They (Google UK Ltd) receive all their income from Google in Ireland, and end up reporting a loss, meaning they pay a nominal amount of tax to the UK tax authorities.
$4bn in sales from the UK market and they pay UK tax authorities around $5mn in tax.
That's why people are angry, and that's why their representative was getting laid into by MPs yesterday.
I'm no accountant or tax lawyer, but it's obvious Google are playing games with the UK. According to their own filings, they made $4bn from UK sales in the last financial year.
The representative yesterday shrugged it off and tried to make out all Google do in the UK is have a bunch of promotions/localization staff. They (Google UK Ltd) receive all their income from Google in Ireland, and end up reporting a loss, meaning they pay a nominal amount of tax to the UK tax authorities.
$4bn in sales from the UK market and they pay UK tax authorities around $5mn in tax.
That's why people are angry, and that's why their representative was getting laid into by MPs yesterday.