The fine and tax payment ends a 4-year case, after France passed a bill to tax global tech firms on revenues generated in France.
By Wale Azeez, business reporter
Thursday 12 September 2019 17:58, UK
Google has agreed to pay nearly €1bn in fines and taxes to France as settlement in a fraud inquiry that began four years ago.
The tech giant said it will pay a €500m (£446.6m) fine, plus €465m (£415m) in taxes, in a deal that may set a legal precedent for other global technology companies operating within the country.
French investigators had been seeking to establish whether the tech giant failed to pay tax due to the state by not declaring parts of its business activities within the country.
Google’s European headquarters are based in Dublin.
Google, part of Alphabet Inc, pays little tax in most European countries because the company reports almost all of its sales in Ireland.
This has been enabled via a loophole in international tax law but it hinges on staff in Dublin being responsible for concluding all European sales contracts.
As such, European countries have struggled to tax the profits of multinational tech companies derived in their jurisdictions.
Source: Sky News>
