When it comes to the issue of the amount of back taxes Google owes in France, the country s finance minister is talking tough.
The amount Google owes France is quite a bit bigger than the $185 million the search giant agreed to pay the United Kingdom to settle a tax dispute there, Michel Sapin said, according to Politico. While saying he wouldn t pass judgment on the resolution of Google s tax issue in the U.K., Sapin, speaking at a financial conference in Paris, implicitly criticized the deal, saying that it seems to have been more of a negotiation than a call to respect the law between Google and the British government.
French tax authorities do not negotiate the amount of taxes owed, Sapin told Reuters.
Meanwhile, the finance minister warned that France is not the only country in which Google s bill for back taxes is likely to exceed its U.K. settlement deal. Italy has already charged that the company avoided paying some $300 million in back taxes there between 2008 and 2013.
Despite the nominally hard line, Sapin indicated to Reuters that there is some room for flexibility in his country s talks with Google.
There is a discussion underway about which rules apply, that s perfectly legitimate, he said.
Google s deal with the U.K. proved to be immediately controversial. Soon after it was announced, the European Union announced it would investigate the agreement after critics charged that it was negotiated in secret and may amount to illegitimate state aid to the company.
The tax practices of multinational corporations, particularly the big tech companies, has been under scrutiny as tax authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have been investigating how they have been minimizing their tax bills.
The Sunday Times of London reported this week that Facebook paid just $6,000 in income tax in the United Kingdom in 2014, despite reporting more than $1 billion in sales in the country. Facebook was able to shrink its bill by giving employees stock-based compensation and by shifting profits to the Cayman Islands, according to the Sunday Times.
A report earlier this month by Bloomberg Intelligence estimated that Apple could owe up to $8 billion in back taxes in Europe.
Photo: French Finance minister Michel Sapin walking to a meeting in Paris last month with France s Prime Minister. (Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images)
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