Google Faces Fresh Claims On Tax Avoidance

Google Faces Fresh Claims On Tax Avoidance


An ex-Google executive claims its tax operation is
"immoral", days after MPs allege it was "devious, calculated and
unethical".


6:43pm UK,
Sunday 19 May 2013



Video: Google Faces Tax Avoidance
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  A former Google executive has accused the company of cheating the
  taxpayer out of hundreds of millions of pounds.
  
  Barney Jones claims the firm has been running an "immoral" tax avoidance
  scheme for the past decade.
  
  The 34-year-old, who worked at the company between 2002 and 2006, made his
  allegations to The Sunday Times.
  
  "The real victims are ordinary taxpayers in Britain who are being cheated by
  Google," he told the paper.
  
  "They don't have the means to hire accountants to pretend they make their
  money in Ireland, Bermuda or the British Virgin Islands.
  
  "What Google is doing is immoral."
  
  The allegations come days after MPs described the internet giant's tax
  operation as "devious, calculated and unethical".
  
  Matt Brittin, the company's vice president, was grilled by MPs on the Public
  Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday over its payment of just £6m in British
  corporation tax in 2011.
  Google's vice president Matt Brittin quizzed
  by the PAC last week
  The firm generated more than £3bn in revenue that year, but claims its UK
  transactions actually take place in Ireland where the corporate tax rate is
  significantly lower.
  
  But MPs reacted with incredulity to claims that the company did not carry out
  advertising sales in the UK and accused the firm of "deliberately manipulating
  the reality of their business".
  
  Google has always strongly denied any wrongdoing - and Mr Brittin insisted
  the company complied "fully" with tax laws.
  
  However, Mr Jones told The Sunday Times: "It uses a concocted scheme to avoid
  tax. It’s a smoke-screen to distort where the substance of its economic activity
  is really taking place."
  
  Of his claims, Google said in a statement: "It is difficult to respond fully
  to documents we have not seen.
  
  "These questions relate to Google's business in the UK going back a decade or
  more and don't change the fact that Google pays the corporate tax due on its UK
  activities and complies fully with UK law."
  
  The controversy comes before Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is due to
  meet Prime Minister David Cameron at Downing Street on Monday.
  
  Writing in the Observer, the executive has given his first reaction to last
  week's criticism of his company by MPs on the public accounts committee.
  
  He said tax avoidance is rightly a "hot topic" in difficult economic times
  and urges genuine reform, but added: "Politicians - not companies - set the
  rules."
  
  Mr Schmidt is also expected to attend a Google event in Hertfordshire on
  Wednesday where Labour leader Ed Miliband is due to speak.
  
  Mr Miliband has pledged new rules to tackle corporate tax dodgers if he wins
  the next election.
  

IT APPEARS THAT SOME GOOGLE ADS ARE A SCAM,SOME SAY YOU PAY THEM AND YOU COULD GET A EHIC CARD.

Badboy wrote:IT APPEARS THAT SOME GOOGLE ADS ARE A SCAM,SOME SAY YOU PAY THEM AND YOU COULD GET A EHIC CARD.

I think Google is very intrusive, I just tried to download a free CC Clean up recommended by Which Magazine and right at the end it asks you to agree to Google chrome, I clicked the X so it so cclean up hasn't installed.!!!

IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT GOOGLE AND OTHER COMPANIES LIKE APPLE ETC MIGHT BE PARASITIC IN THAT THE INVENTION OF THE INTERNET WAS STARTED WITH PUBLIC FUNDS(US DEFENCE DEPARTMENT ETC),BUT THE BUSINESSES BENEFITING FROM IT ARE NOT PAYING TAXES TOWARDS THE PUBLIC PURSE.

Badboy wrote:IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT GOOGLE AND OTHER COMPANIES LIKE APPLE ETC MIGHT BE PARASITIC IN THAT THE  INVENTION OF THE INTERNET WAS STARTED WITH PUBLIC FUNDS(US DEFENCE DEPARTMENT ETC),BUT THE BUSINESSES BENEFITING FROM IT ARE NOT PAYING TAXES TOWARDS THE PUBLIC PURSE.

I thought Alan Lerners Lee, working in a University in Switzerland invented the internet BadBoy? Check out wikipedia and post what you find here if yiu would, Ta.

Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Iris wrote:Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Thanks Iris, so what did Berners Lee get out ot it.?

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Thanks Iris, so what did Berners Lee get out ot it.?

A Knighthood, which I think was well deserved, and the amount of awe and respect that no amount of money can ever buy. Because he refused to sell it, saying that it should be free for everybody.

Iris wrote:

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Thanks Iris, so what did Berners Lee get out ot it.?

A Knighthood, which I think was well deserved, and the amount of awe and respect that no amount of money can ever buy.  Because he refused to sell it, saying that it should be free for everybody.

Very Noble of him I'm sure , I remember that now. I wonder what he thinks of his invention now and the way it is used for pornography , grooming , the demise of town shopping etc.

HAVE LOOKED UP HISTORY OF INTERNET,BASICALLY STARTEDBY US DEFENCE DEPARTMENT/US UNIVERSITIES.
THIS ARTCLE WAS SAYING HOW MANY THINGS STARTED BY GOVERNMENT RESEARCH END UP WITH COMPANIES MAKING PROFITS.

Badboy wrote:HAVE LOOKED UP HISTORY OF INTERNET,BASICALLY STARTEDBY US DEFENCE DEPARTMENT/US UNIVERSITIES.
THIS ARTCLE WAS SAYING HOW MANY THINGS STARTED BY GOVERNMENT RESEARCH END UP WITH COMPANIES MAKING PROFITS.

Yes Badboy, I don't think anyone realised at the time how the internet would become such a phenomenon

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Thanks Iris, so what did Berners Lee get out ot it.?

A Knighthood, which I think was well deserved, and the amount of awe and respect that no amount of money can ever buy.  Because he refused to sell it, saying that it should be free for everybody.

Very Noble of him I'm sure , I remember that now. I wonder what he thinks of his invention now and the way it is used for pornography , grooming , the demise of town shopping etc.

The demise of town shopping is quite a major side effect, but the porn and grooming only accounts for a tiny percentage of internet traffic. Despite what alarmist reports would have you believe.

Iris wrote:

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:

Panda wrote:

Iris wrote:Tim Berners Lee, working at CERN, is credited with inventing the Internet, but in order for the Internet to work it relies on the World Wide Web, what was invented by a group of institutions - one of which was the Pentagon.

Thanks Iris, so what did Berners Lee get out ot it.?

A Knighthood, which I think was well deserved, and the amount of awe and respect that no amount of money can ever buy.  Because he refused to sell it, saying that it should be free for everybody.

Very Noble of him I'm sure , I remember that now. I wonder what he thinks of his invention now and the way it is used for pornography , grooming , the demise of town shopping etc.

The demise of town shopping is quite a major side effect, but the porn and grooming only accounts for a tiny percentage of internet traffic.  Despite what alarmist reports would have you believe.

April's Killer had porn on his Computer and the recent case , can't remember the victim's name. Mary Whitehouse must be turning in her grave.

THE INTERNET WHILE IT CAN BE USEED FOR EVIL AND APPEARS TO BE DECIMATING TOWN STREET SHOPS CAN ALSO USED FOR GOOD,YOU CAN TRY SETTING UP YOUR OWN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE/BUSINESS AT MINIMAL COST
I WOULD TO DO AN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE MYSELF.

Badboy wrote:THE INTERNET WHILE IT CAN BE USEED FOR EVIL AND APPEARS TO BE DECIMATING TOWN STREET SHOPS CAN ALSO USED FOR GOOD,YOU CAN TRY SETTING UP YOUR OWN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE/BUSINESS AT MINIMAL COST
I WOULD TO DO AN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE MYSELF.

Hi Badboy, I thought that's what you were doing a few months ago?

haven't done it