£1 BILLION IN PAY FOR GOOGLE’S UK STAFF
That’s an average of £226,000 each
WEB giant Google paid its UK staff £1billion last year – equivalent to £226,000 per worker,
Its workforce jumped from 3,658 to 4,439 in 2019, taking its outlay on salaries, share-based rewards and other staff costs to £1billion.
However the company paid less UK corporation tax last year, despite a near £200million leap in revenues.
The US-based company’s stated bill fell from almost £73million to just under £55million, after profits at its main UK-based firm dropped from £246million to £225million.
That was partly because it went on a hiring spree, including taking on nearly 400 extra staff in research and development, and handed out more in share-based rewards to employees.
Meanwhile, Google UK’s revenues rocketed from just over £1.4billion to almost £1.6billion.
The money comes from Google UK providing “marketing services” and research and development for other parts of the online heavyweight.
It does not include the bulk of Google’s business – lucrative advertising sales – which have traditionally been booked in Ireland.
Paul Monaghan, chief executive of the Fair Tax Mark, said: “Once again, it seems like Google are writing their own rules in the UK.
“Income is up in 2019, but corporation tax charges are down. That’s before the ongoing puzzle of how they get away with booking so little of their UK advertising revenue through their UK subsidiary.
“Advertising analysts estimate the revenue raised in the UK is four times greater than that booked by the UK arm of Google, at £5.5 billion. The UK’s proposed 2% Digital Services Tax on income barely scratches the surface of what is a fair tax contribution.”
Google said its total tax charge for last year was £59million – down from almost £66million – but that does not take into account adjustments.
A spokeswoman said: “As an international business, we pay the vast majority – more than 80% – of our corporate income tax in the US, which is our home country. We also pay all the tax that is due in the UK.”
Campaign group the Tax Justice Network, in an analysis for the Mirror, estimated last year that Google had avoided £1.5billion in UK corporation tax in 2018. This was based on the firm booking all UK sales here.