Monthly Archives: December 2012

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is known for frank speaking even when he says something unpopular. Recently, he was at it again, defending his company’s avoidance of British taxes. Documents show that the search giant earned £2.5 billion in UK sales last year but paid just £6 million in taxes. Google has also been revealed to have sheltered nearly $10 billion of its revenues in Bermuda allowing it to avoid some $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011. But Schmidt said such schemes were legitimate and the company paid taxes “in the legally prescribed ways”. “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,” he said. “It’s called capitalism. We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.” He also said they would not be following Starbucks in voluntarily handing more money over to the UK Government. Google has also announced it will now charge small business users for using some formerly free Web-based services, such as text-editing, spreadsheets and even Gmail. It will charge the more than 5 million businesses with 10 employees that use the services $50 per user per year in America, £33 in Britain. It says by doing so it would be able to provide better support to businesses, such as 24/7 tech support and larger in-boxes. Though there will be no charge for individuals, this is a significant … Continue reading →