Prison Planet.com » Google’s tax avoidance is called ‘capitalism’, says chairman Eric Schmidt

Google’s tax avoidance is called ‘capitalism’, says chairman Eric Schmidt

Posted By admin On December 13, 2012 @ 6:38 am In Money Watch | Comments Disabled

London Telegraph ^[1]
Dec 13, 2012

Mr Schmidt’s comments risk inflaming the row over the amount of tax multinationals pay, after it emerged that Google funnelled $9.8bn (£6.07bn) of revenues from international subsidiaries into Bermuda ^[2] last year in order to halve its tax bill.

However, Mr Schmidt defended the company’s legitimate tax arrangements. “We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he told Bloomberg. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.”

“It’s called capitalism,” he said. “We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”

In Britain Vince Cable was unimpressed by Mr Schmidt’s views. The Business Secretary told The Daily Telegraph: “It may well be [capitalism] but it’s certainly not the job of governments to accommodate it.”

Full article here ^[1]

Article printed from Prison Planet.com: http://www.prisonplanet.com

URL to article: http://www.prisonplanet.com/googles-tax-avoidance-is-called-capitalism-says-chairman-eric-schmidt.html

URLs in this post:

[1] London Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9739039/Googles-tax-avoidance-is-called-capitalism-says-chairman-Eric-Schmidt.html

[2] Google funnelled $9.8bn (£6.07bn) of revenues from international subsidiaries into Bermuda: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/tax/9735448/Google-avoided-2bn-tax-by-funnelling-profits-through-Bermunda.html

Click here to print.