Google says it would pay more tax in the UK

jay-me

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8727503/Google-says-it-would-pay-more-tax-in-UK.html

Google says it would pay more tax in UK
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has blamed the Government's weak tax laws for the fact it pays just £8m of corporation tax in Britain despite making more than £6bn in revenues in this country.
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Dr Eric Schmidt said Google would be willing to pay higher taxes.

Activists from UK Uncut claim that a number of major companies have avoided paying corporation tax on their offshore assets.

Although Google has not been targeted by UK Uncut, the company's fiscal policy has come under fire for diverting some £2bn of its UK revenues through Ireland, where corporate tax rates are lower.

Mr Schmidt said that the online search giant, which employs more than 1,000 people in the UK, was committed to having a presence in the UK regardless of the rate of tax.

"We love Britain. If Britain changes its tax laws, we will pay taxes in accordance with those laws. I can't be clearer than that," he said. His comments will reignite the debate about paying tax in the UK, with Mr Schmidt putting the issue firmly at the door of the Government. The Treasury did not comment last night.

Mr Schmidt also spoke about Google's agreement to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5bn (£7.6bn) for the first time since the deal was announced, claiming the group is interested in handsets as well as its library of 17,000 patents and 7,500 pending patents. But he added that Google did not want to find itself "disadvantaged" in the growing "patent wars" brewing in mobile computing.

Wonder if they would feel the same way about over here, or would they up and leave if we were to heighten our corporate tax rate! :rolleyes:

locked_out

Why not just try to mitigate the higher taxes in the UK by exploiting legal oopholes in their system?:pac:

K-9

If they think they'll save costs somewhere else they'll leave.

That's the thing about Corporation tax, stroke of a pen, somebody else is lower.

Anyway, it's the rules that gets Google and many others.

bluto63

I don't get the complaint, it's a problem a company is trying to get the best deal for themselves? My god, what bastards!