A group of officials checked into Google Headquarters on 24th May 2016 to check on suspicions that arised on tax evasion. There was a good group of officials that comprised of members from the corruption and tax fraud office, financial prosecution office and 25 IT experts.
Al Verney who is the spokesperson for the company in Europe, has replied to media that the company is fully following the French law and will respond with proof to the official queries.
It was also revealed that the tax raid was not a sudden one and there have been issues over Google tax payments since June after complaints filed by the tax department in France. The government sources have also stated that it was a huge operation with several officials and authorities involved and is not a usual tax raid. The punishment amount if the guilt is proves has been estimated to be around 10 million euros or half of the money obtained illegally. Christian Eckert, the Budget Minister had reported that France can pulled in over 3 billion euros from multinational companies in 2015 as penalty and back tax.
Google Tax Policies
Google has been facing issues with European laws and even people who are furious on the Google policy of reporting all sales in Ireland with its main base in Ireland. Google has its offices all round the world and pays very less tax in European countries. The raid was aimed at finding if there were any localized business deals which have not been taxed in France. The raid was a part of a major operation to seek into the google tax practices. Authorities have claimed that Google will have to pay around 1.6 billion euros as back tax to France. There have been several major loopholes in Google Tax handling and the aim of authority is to bring this into light.