Google Agrees To Pay 130M UK Pounds (~ $185M) In Back Taxes (telegraph.co.uk)

whoever57 writes: Google UK has come to an agreement with HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) under which it will recognize a larger share of its UK sales in the UK, instead of funnelling them through the Republic of Ireland. In addition, Google will pay 130M UK Pounds in back taxes representing tax on sales since 2005.

Comments

Re:And obviously, Ireland will rebate on the taxes

[Bert64]

Well the phrasing "come to an agreement" says it all..
For any normal person you don't come to an agreement with the government, they state how much tax you owe and you have to pay it or you go to jail, there's no negotiation.

What's in a statement?

[thegarbz]

Google has come to an agreement.
vs
Google has agreed to a settlement.
vs
Google has been found guilty and are forced...

What is the point of this? It seems very clear that this is some kind of feel good measure, a public gesture of good will. I wonder if this is part of reducing the heat on governments to close the taxation loopholes that allow this kind of activity to be legal in the first place.

Re:What's in a statement?

[AmiMoJo]

This is how tax works for large corporations in the UK:

1. Pay accountant to obfuscate your tax liability

2. Take head of HMRC out to an expensive restaurant and have the following conversion:

CFO: How much tax do we owe?
HMRC: I dunno, LOL.
CFO: Our PR department says we need to pay at least a few mill or people might start to overcome their apathy. Alternatively you could spend years taking us to court and we would win anyway, cos our lawyers are top notch. Then we can do it again every single year.
HMRC: A few mill sounds fine. I'm ordering dessert.
CFO: No you aren't.