Google May Be $1 Billion Behind In Tax Payments To France

An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica reports, 'Technology giant Google has been delinquent on its tax payments in France for the past few years, to the tune of more than $1 billion in missed payments, and it now may be hit with a sizable tax penalty by the French government.' Google asserts that it has operated within the law in France, but the French government has reason to believe that in order to avoid French taxes, Google has been passing off some of its business contracts as Irish rather than French."

Comments

$1B? That's nothing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of the Double Irish and a Dutch sandwich?
The City of London has established a world-spanning network of tax heaven states, mostly consisting of former parts of the english empire. Big corporations use this system to not pay taxes, and the sums involved exceed 1$B by far.

Re:So few

[PopeRatzo]

In some countries, maybe there's some blame to be had for escaping taxes...but France is a whole other argument. I mean shit, 75% tax on the wealthiest has resulted in a lot of them just flat out leaving that country. It got so bad that their dear leader is now lobbying against his own tax plan; the same plan that put it there to begin with.

What do personal tax rates have to do with a corporation paying corporate taxes? There are no "75%" corporate taxes in France?

A corporation has a choice in whether or not to do business in a country. Google has no problem doing business in countries with regimes with a lot worse policies than a 75% top personal tax rate.

Re:So few

[davester666]

Actually, it really appears that Google was blatantly NOT following the law.

Apple sells an iPhone and says X% of the value of it is for patents to be paid to an Irish company [or something like that], which is completely legal, even if it is also completely arbitrary [as Apple owns said patents] so they basically shift most profits out of the country. Everybody and their dog does this, Apple just headlines this because they are a relatively new company [vs say, petroleum companies] and they make highest amount of profit [or thereabouts] worldwide.

Google has a large office of employee's in France, that were involved with negotiating and signing advertising contracts with french companies, then claiming those contracts were actually signed IN IRELAND. This is the part that the tax collectors are taking issue with. To be legal and not have to pay taxes in France for those contracts, Google would basically have to close their french offices and get everyone to directly deal with their Irish division.

And I believe I saw a similar story about the UK also investigating Google doing this in the UK as well. And I'm sure all the other tax collection agencies in the EU have perked up their ears and started taking a look at this...