If this had happened to me the government would expect payment now, not over ten years. How Apple, Google et al. keep getting these sweetheart deals is beyond me. They have billions in their petty cash drawers. Force them to write a check and be done with it.
Google after six-year tax foot-drag: No they're fine about the fine. We're fine. No fine
Google has not been fined for taking six years to settle its controversial £130m tax bill with the UK's HMRC, the company confirmed in front of MPs today. Google told the Public Accounts Committee in Westminster, London, it had not been subjected to a fine for taking six years to agree its tax bill between 2005 and 2015, as …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 11th February 2016 18:19 GMT maffski
Re: Ah
It's nice to know that HMRC are happy that Graham Marsden UK are billing Graham Marsden Ireland an amount in line with European guidance re. transfer pricing.
The alternative Golden Rule: He who has a query regarding taxation may require negotiations to be completed before a due amount can be derived.
If you don't like the rules change them. Tax should be about the most efficient way of extracting the funds needed with minimal damage to the economy. It shouldn't be a tool to bully whichever company the great and good have decided they hate today.
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Thursday 11th February 2016 14:51 GMT ratfox
The ten years do not mean that Google has ten years to pay; they mean that Google did not pay enough tax for the past ten years, and they have to pay the total amount now, or at least very soon.
Actually, they certainly have to pay interest on that sum, so it would actually benefit the government if Google took a long time to pay.
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Thursday 11th February 2016 16:22 GMT Alistair
@ getHandle
I suspect that the itnewrebz are attempting to escalate the amount of utter gibberish that can be pushed out to the unwashed hordes as "news" in order to outsource more information reporting to the $3/day slaves. Since the ads aren't selling very well any more, we have to lower costs, and increase our C suite bonuses or Wall Streek will deflate our stock value.
Either that or the axiom I live by is accellerating:
The sum total of intelligence on the planet is a constant.
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Thursday 11th February 2016 16:32 GMT Tim #3
What actually is the point of the public accounts committee? Has anything ever actually changed as a result of their activities, or is it just for a bunch of non-achiever MPs to pretend they are doing something useful? I can't think of a single example ever where their involvement has changed anything and benefited anyone - would be glad to hear of any that other readers know of though...
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Thursday 11th February 2016 18:14 GMT TJ1
Think harder, or read...
"In the 2010-15 Parliament, the Committee held 276 evidence sessions and published 244 unanimous reports which included 1,338 recommendations. As proof of how seriously government takes the Committee's work, 88% of those recommendations were accepted by departments. "
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/history-of-committee/
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Thursday 11th February 2016 22:07 GMT Colin Tree
split up Google
Too big to fine, too big to break.
Sounds like the banks who caused the GFC
Corporations avoiding taxes are the cause of government debt all across the world.
Will the internet fall over without Google ?
This is the place where massive corporations get forced to break into smaller separate companies.
Maybe some jail time for the CEO and some high executives,
Grand Larceny on an unprecedented scale.