Google boss gets £142m shares deal –that’s £12m MORE than its UK tax bill
GOOGLE has handed its boss £ 142million in shares – just weeks after striking a hugely controversial tax deal in Britain for £130million.
The shares package means US chief executive Sundar Pichai, 43, has been awarded £12million more than HMRC managed to claw back from the firm in corporation tax for the ten years after 2005.
The sweetheart tax deal with the internet giant was lauded initially by Chancellor George Osborne as a ‘major success’ and a ‘victory’ for the taxpayer when it was announced last month.
But there has been increasing anger as other countries, including France and Italy, have taken a much harder line in their negotiations over unpaid tax.
Mr Pichai’s sky-high pay package is unlikely to dispel criticism of the firm or the Government for accepting such a low deal.
Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt has received £165.5million since 2010, earning £76million in 2014 alone. His current net worth is estimated at £6.3billion.
Stefan Stern, of the High Pay Centre, said of Mr Pichai’s deal: ‘This award of shares gives us an idea of what Google’s priorities are. ‘ Their priorities appear to be awarding themselves fantastic amounts and not necessarily making a contribution to the countries which are enabling them to make fast amounts of money.
The problem with awards of this kind is that people in their world get used to them.
‘If you’re paying out extraordinary amounts of money you better be sure that someone is really bringing that value to the business.’
Mr Pichai, born in India where his family did not have a telephone until he was 12, took over as Google chief executive in October.
His pay and shares package made him the highest paid boss in the US for the last year, overtaking Discovery Communications chief David Zaslav who got £108million. His share award comes three days before MPs will question Google UK chiefs. The public accounts committee is likely to quiz them over how the firm is able to reduce its tax by channelling UK sales through Ireland, which has a lower corporation tax rate than Britain.
In its latest UK accounts, the firm said it took £1.2billion in revenues over 18 months. It paid £46million corporation tax on operating profit of £123million.
Google declined to comment last night on Mr Pichai’s pay deal.