Average Google worker in UK gets £234,000
British wage bill tops £1bn – but firm only pays £44m of corporation tax
GOOGle’S UK staff earned an average of £234,000 each last year – but the company paid only £ 44 million in corporation tax here.
The British arm of the online search giant spent more than £1 billion on pay and bonuses in the year to the end of June 2019, up by a quarter from £829 million the previous year.
UK staff numbers rose from 3,658 to 4,439, an increase of nearly 800, according to accounts filed by the company.
The UK part of Google functions mostly as a sales and marketing arm, while the overall european base is in Dublin, where lower taxes are paid.
The accounts also showed that the company’s new offices in King’s Cross in london were worth £290million as of June last year. The quirky HQ, which is still being built, is set to include sleep pods, a rooftop meadow, large swimming pool and massage rooms.
Described as a ‘ landscraper’, the 11- storey building is expected to be longer than the 1,016ft Shard is tall.
Staff costs, the accounts show, included more than £482 million on wages and salaries and a further £441 million in ‘share-based payments’, with social security and pension costs taking the total outlay over £1 billion.
The figures also revealed that Google UK’s ‘total tax charge’ for the year had dropped by £21 million from £65.6 million to £44.3 million, as its profits fell from £246.3 million to £225.8 million after a hiring spree on the 800 extra workers. Reacting to the tech firm’s corporation tax bill, Dame Margaret Hodge said: ‘It’s a joke and shows that they are not paying a fair rate.’
The labour MP added: ‘It’s less than the year before and it’s insulting when other businesses are struggling. In the post Covidsales
‘Writing their own rules’
19 era world, the Government really must stamp out this abuse of our tax system.’
Paul Monaghan, chief executive of tax transparency campaign group Fair Tax Mark, added: ‘Once again, it seems like Google are writing their own rules in the UK. Income is up in 2019, but current corporation tax charges are down.’
The accounts showed the British part of Google employed 1,723 people in marketing, 2,171 in research and development and 545 in ‘management and administration’. The mean average of staff pay last year works out at about £234,000 each.
The accounts showed that Google UK generated revenues of £1.6 billion last year, up from £1.4 billion the year before.
The Government is attempting to clamp down on the use of profits and cash being moved to countries with lower tax levels, and is planning a 2 per cent digital service tax.
If this came in, Google would see 2 per cent of its £1.6 billion
in the UK taxed, bringing in an extra £32 million for the Treasury. Google said it was ‘committed to the recruitment and retention of first-rate people, and therefore offers a highly competitive compensation and benefits package’.
A spokesman for Google said: ‘As an international business, we pay the vast majority – more than 80 per cent – of our corporate income tax in the US, which is our home country.
‘We also pay all of the tax that is due in the UK. We continue to strongly support the Organisation for economic Cooperation and Development’s work to develop a new international framework for how multinational companies are taxed.’