Google Norway does its best to avoid paying Norwegian taxes, but is this illegal?

The Norwegian newspaper Dagens N?ringsliv reports today that Google does its best to avoid paying taxes to the Norwegian government.

Google Norway had an official turnover of NOK 33.6 million last year (US$ 6.2 mill). However, as Dagens N?ringsliv points out, that is only a fraction of the unit’s real revenue.

Unnamed media companies estimate that Google sold pay per click text ads in Norway for NOK 200 million last year (approximately US$ 37 mill), and is expected to generate twice as much this year. Still, last year Google Norway paid only NOK 1.5 mill in taxes.

Google Ireland takes the money

How does Google do this?

According to Dagens N?ringsliv the income is turned over to Google Ireland. It is Google Ireland that bills the Norwegian AdWords customers.

Google’s boss in Norway, Jan Gr?nbech, is not willing to comment upon this to Dagens N?ringsliv.

(more…)

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